SOUTHAMPTON, NY — Their voices breaking, three Southampton High School students spoke about what it has been like to grow up in a time when active shooter drills are the norm and teenagers worry whether they will be gunned down during a day of classes.
The students were among East End residents who joined others around the nation in a March for Our Lives rally in Southampton on Saturday.Last month’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed, has sparked outrage. Carrying signs that read “Ban Assault Weapons,” “Protect Our Kids, Not Guns,” “Bury Weapons, Not Children,” “Human Lives Over Gun Greed,” “No Guns, No Graves” and “I Can’t Believe We Still Have to Protest This S—,” a group of residents gathered outside Southampton Town Hall to plead for concrete change.
Scout Whiting, 16, spoke about her experience: “It is not if, it’s ‘when,’ a shooter,” she said.
Her mother, a television producer, called her when the news of Uvalde broke, she said. “She whispered, ‘If a shooter ever comes into your school, you are to throw a desk through the window and run with the wind. . . get the hell out of there!'” … [more]