Teachers Protest Gun Violence At March For Our Lives Rallies

Peter Lynch, 37, a high school teacher in Washington, DC, told BuzzFeed News that his students and fellow teachers are the reasons he went out to march.

“I went to school during Columbine,” Lynch said. “I’ve had students who were shocked by Parkland, became politically active. Now they’re graduating college. It shouldn’t be a generational experience. I’ve also had students traumatized by gun violence in the city and it’s all become too much. It wouldn’t be right for me to congratulate and encourage them, and then stay home.”

Gun violence has become an intrinsic part of American life. In the days prior to the devastating massacre in Uvalde, a shooter killed 10 people inside a Buffalo grocery store. Churchgoers in Laguna Beach were shot at in the same week. Just this past week, three pedestrians in a Philadelphia street were killed and 11 injured, while another shooter was arrested in Oklahoma for opening fire in a hospital, killing four.

In the wake of the Uvalde Robb Elementary School shooting, people remembered those whose lives were lost at Marjory Stonewall High School, Sandy Hook Elementary, Oxford High School, and Santa Fe High School.