Students, others protest school shootings

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

While hundreds of thousands of people marched across the nation on Saturday, nearly 50 students, teachers, and other adults did the same in Van Wert during the national March for Our Lives event that honored the 17 students and staff who were killed in a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Those who participated walked from the YWCA of Van Wert County to Fountain Park, where speakers called for common sense gun control measures aimed at ending school shooting incidents that have plagued the U.S. for decades.

Speakers included the rally’s organizer, Crestview junior Hannah Bouillon, as well as other students from Crestview, and students from Van Wert and Lincolnview, two teachers, and Van Wert County Sheriff Thomas Riggenbach.

Bouillon spoke first, echoing the impatience young people have with the current lack of adequate gun control measures that have allowed people with mental illness to obtain guns they then use to kill others.

“I have grown up in a world where school shootings are a common occurrence, and I, along with others, have grown sick of it,” Bouillon said. “I’m sick of the violence, I’m sick of the death, I’m sick of the arguing, and I’m sick of being told I’m too young to make a change.”

Another student, who was introduced using only her first name, Emily, spoke about her own experiences with gun violence, noting that someone she trusted pointed a gun at her head during an argument in her own home.

“I was in my own home, somewhere I used to feel safe, I was with someone I felt like I could trust,” she explained. “I insulted him and he retaliated by grabbing the pistol at his side and aiming it at my head.”

While the other person was not identified, Emily said there had been other incidents of violence from the same person, incidents that had deeply affected her, and noted that she was diagnosed later on with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) related to the incidents.

“We need to protect the other 14-year-old girls, because when I was a danger to myself, I got a diagnosis and I got medication,” she added of her mental illness. “When he was a danger to me, he had a gun. And in case you were wondering, he actually has a lot more now.”

Emily said she supported better mental health screening nationwide and removal of guns from those found to suffer from mental illness.

Other students from Crestview, as well as Van Wert freshman Isabelle Smith, talked about the recent threats received at those two schools. Bouillon also read a letter from another Hannah, Hannah Weaver, one of the students named in a list of Crestview students who were threatened in an Instagram post. Weaver’s letter talked about how she felt about being one of several students threatened with violence.

Lincolnview eighth-grader Miah Miller, who was involved in the School Walk Out event on February 14 at her school, talked about the need to reform current gun laws.

“I feel like many people do not like to talk about gun control because they feel like the government wants to take their guns, and that, somehow, it makes them unable to protect their families,” Miller noted. “I’m a hunter (and) I do not want to take all the guns away.”

She did note, though, that loopholes in current gun laws need to be removed and also supported background checks on all those who purchase guns in the U.S., including those who buy from unlicensed gun dealers — something not required now.

“We need to fix this loophole,” she added.

Paulding teacher Gary Gilbert addressed the issue of arming teachers to protect students.

“As a teacher, I cringe at the thought of my school, or any other school in northwest Ohio, gravitating toward this solution of arming teachers as a way to combat an active shooter,” Gilbert said. “Am I going to carry a gun on my side where a student could bump into me and grab it and do violence to his classmates? Is it going to be kept in a lockbox, where an active shooter gets into my classroom and I’m 20 feet away (from it)? He has an AR-15, I’m going to be scrambling for a pistol. Who’s going to win that battle?”

Gilbert also praised the students for their efforts in trying to reform gun laws in the U.S.

“I believe this is a movement that is not going away any time soon,” he noted. “I hope it really results in a better America for all of us.

Sheriff Riggenbach provided information on what students and school staff should do in the event an active shooter is in their school, noting that he supports the self-explanatory “run, hide, fight” model such an event occurs.

However, if running and hiding are not an option, the sheriff noted that students or staff may have to find ways to fight a shooter.

“The possibility exists that (if) you’re faced with the shooter and you’ve got to fight for your life,” the sheriff said, adding that those in that situation should look for something to throw at the shooter or a weapon they could use against the shooter. “It’s important to remember if that person gets into the room that you’re at, and they’ve got a gun, and you’re not doing anything … well, you know what the end result is.”

Unlike many of those at the event, Sheriff Riggenbach said he was not against AR-15s or other types of guns being sold, but did feel better regulations were needed to make sure they don’t get in the hands of the wrong people.

Another aid in preventing school shootings could be having school resource officers in each school building, but Sheriff Riggenbach said that solution would require additional funding to implement, since law enforcement departments or schools would have to hire and train additional personnel.

Currently, Crestview and Lincolnview share a deputy who spends half of each week in each district.

Moreover, while those at the rally were adamant about the need for better gun control regulations, not everyone agreed.

A small group of men gathered around a pickup truck parked alongside Fountain Park that had flags on it showing an AR-15 and the words: “Come and take it.”

That group dispersed shortly after Sheriff Riggenbach started speaking.