When Ellie Otis, a member of March for Our Lives Utah, re-read her speech on Wednesday from last summer’s protest against gun violence, she thought to herself, “I should just read this again. What’s changed?”

“Everything I said is still relevant,” Otis said on the marble steps of Utah’s capitol building. “The politicians are still taking millions from the NRA and put out thoughts and prayers when they could have done something to prevent it.”

More than a hundred people rallied at the Utah Capitol building Wednesday for a March For Our Lives protest in response to recent mass shootings across the country, including at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee where six people were killed — three of which were nine years old. In February, three people were killed and five were critically injured in a shooting at Michigan State University. 

Last week, two days after the Nashville shooting, police responded to many calls at Utah high schools about potential active shooter threats. The calls were determined to be hoaxes and from out of the country. 

There have already been over 130 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2023. 

“We’re here because we believe that every student has the right to feel safe in their school and community,” said Jaden Christensen, a nursing student at the University of Utah. “Time and time again, we’ve seen what poor firearm legislation caused and the sorrow that it brings to our community. Enough is enough.”

Otis explained that she continually gets asked what March for Our Lives has accomplished — if it’s even made a dent.

“All these angry questions directed at me, a 22-year-old student,” she exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to change this world for years, since I was 16 years old. Don’t ask me or the fellow students of this organization what more we could be doing when those questions should be reserved for our supposed representatives.” 

College students should be focused on midterms, which party to attend this weekend and what they want to do with the rest of their lives, Otis said, “not fearing that [their lives] might end any moment, not standing up here once again, pleading to a brick wall of a government to please, please let us live.”

Carolyn Tuft spoke as a survivor of the Trolley Square mass shooting in 2007, where six people were killed, including her 15-year-old daughter, Kirsten Hinckley. They were shopping for Valentine’s Day cards for her daughter’s friends. Tuft said they parked their car and within three minutes, Kirsten was dead. Tuft was severely injured and had over 500 shotgun pellets lodged in her body, many of which are still stuck inside her. 

“We should be able to take our kids to school and not worry about them leaving in body bags,” Tuft said, as the crowd wiped away tears. “You hear about all the deaths every day from shootings. And I think we’ve all become pretty numb to them.”

In retelling her story to the crowd, Tuft said, “For 16 years, I have been sick and in constant pain. I lost my house. I lost my business. I lost my health. I lost my child. Gun violence destroys your life.”

Recently, guns surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for American children. 

Isa Avalos, a high school student who attended the protest, said having the right to an education is important to her. 

“Everyone’s fighting for us to continue to stay in school and … you can hear them say that, but they’re not giving us a chance to continue our life, to continue that education — if they’re just letting people come in and shoot us,“ she told the Chronicle.  

Erica McCarthy, a retired teacher who used to work at Rowland Hall, said when she first became a teacher, the worst thing teachers had to deal with was a parent swearing at them.

“Now it can be a child as young as six-years-old [being shot] that you wouldn’t even dream of hearing about,” McCarthy said.

She added that people in government need to reevaluate their lives and what they can do to reduce gun violence across the country. 

“They’re not going to have teachers soon, because why would these young people want to stay in this career that is so noble if they can’t be safe and keep their kids safe?” McCarthy said.

Emma Cole, who’s still working on her bachelor’s degree in education, said she wants nothing more than to be a teacher, but it’s a frightening time to go into the field. 

“It makes me so scared that my dream job could kill me or that I could end up being a human shield,” Cole said.

Cole said she has friends who have tried to hurt themselves, but “I’m glad that they didn’t have access to a gun because they probably wouldn’t have failed.”

“When people have access to guns, we see most people, when committing suicide that have a gun … they do go through with it, versus [with] other weapons,” said Rep. Angela Romero, Utah House minority caucus leader. 

Utah ranks ninth in the country in gun suicides. 85% of gun deaths in Utah are suicides.

Romero said she felt it was important to attend the march to support the students of March For Our Lives and added she has “great concerns” that not enough is being done about gun violence at the federal and state level.

There were a handful of firearm-related bills introduced during this year’s state legislative session aimed at curbing gun deaths. But potential legislation to create waiting periods, mandated safe firearm storage and requirements for keeping records of firearms recovered from restricted persons all failed.

Romero said Rep. Brian S. King has been instrumental in working on gun violence legislation. 

“For us, as a caucus, you definitely will see more legislation coming from us and that will be led mostly by Rep. King,” she said.

Christensen said, speaking to the crowd, that as students, youth and community members they have the power to make change happen through organizing, protesting, voting and holding elected officials accountable.

“We can demand that the government take action to address this crisis and make our schools and communities safer for everyone,” Christensen said. “We owe it to ourselves, our community and to all those who have been impacted by gun violence to keep fighting until we see a real, lasting action.”

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