On September 5, 2025, a wave of activism and controversy swept across the United States, as students from West Michigan joined their peers nationwide in walking out of schools to protest gun violence, even as reports surfaced that the Department of Justice was considering a proposal to bar transgender people from owning firearms. The confluence of these two events—one driven by grassroots outrage, the other by top-down policymaking—has ignited fierce debate about the nation’s approach to gun violence, marginalized communities, and the role of politics in public safety.
At Rockford High School, just north of Grand Rapids, students poured out of classrooms and marched to the football field, their voices rising in unison. Many carried handmade signs reading “books not bullets” and “schools not warzones,” a clear rebuke of the violence that has become all too common in American schools. The demonstration was echoed at Portage Central High School, where students lined the sidewalks holding placards with messages like “protect kids not guns.” According to WOOD-TV, these walkouts were part of a coordinated nationwide action organized by Students Demand Action, a student-led movement that has grown in prominence as school shootings continue to devastate communities.
The immediate catalyst for the protest was a deadly shooting in Minnesota, where two students lost their lives and several others were injured at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. For many participants, the tragedy brought a renewed sense of urgency to their demands. “I am frustrated that school shootings and gun rights are turning into a political divide between Democrats and Republicans,” said Brayden Burgess, a junior at Rockford High School, in an interview with WOOD-TV. “Children are being killed regardless — Democrat, religion, Republican — it shouldn’t be a divide with politics. We should get this done to keep kids safe and to keep parents out of funerals.”
Burgess’s words capture the exhaustion and impatience felt by many young people. “We are tired of waiting,” he added. “We want change, we don’t want to fear for our lives. I want (the community) to see scared kids in their schools that they put them at, I want them to realize that kids want this change, and this is not something we are sitting back and relaxing about. We need change.”
Olivia Griswold, a junior at Portage Central, echoed the sentiment that students, though not yet old enough to vote, are determined to make their voices heard. “Even though we are not old enough to vote, we care about this issue and we want to be able to make a difference and we want to put pressure on lawmakers to say ‘Hey gun violence in schools is not a good thing, we need to make a change,’” she told WOOD-TV. For Ava Tate, a senior at Portage, the sheer turnout for the protest was emotional. “It literally, tears came to my eyes when I saw how many people were out there because I was not expecting it,” she said. Tate hopes that such demonstrations will finally break what she calls a “cycle” of violence: “It keeps on happening and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
As students demand action and unity, policymakers in Washington are considering a move that has drawn sharp criticism from civil rights advocates. According to The Advocate, the U.S. Department of Justice is weighing a proposal to ban transgender people from owning firearms. The reported plan has been met with alarm from LGBTQ+ advocates, who argue that it does nothing to address the root causes of gun violence while putting an already vulnerable community at greater risk.
Hudson Munoz, executive director of Guns Down America—a nonprofit focused on gun safety and reducing gun proliferation—did not mince words in his response. Calling the proposal “misplaced, cruel, and dangerous,” Munoz argued that it scapegoats transgender people instead of confronting the systemic failures in America’s gun policies. “What won’t they do?” Munoz asked The Advocate. “To avoid talking about the truth of gun violence, which is that permissive access and a massive deregulatory agenda around firearms is increasing the lethality and prevalence of guns in our communities. That is what leads to gun violence.”
Munoz pointed out that, rather than investing in proven strategies like community violence intervention programs, education, or workforce training, lawmakers are diverting attention and resources while creating “bogeymen” to blame. “They are going out of their way to create a bogeyman for gun violence, trans people, in order to avoid talking about the hard truths that need real solutions,” he said. “It’s particularly cruel and misplaced, given the rates of suicide and self-harm in the LGBTQ community. This is part of a broader strategy to persecute marginalized communities and blame them for problems that the [current] administration is creating for itself.”
Munoz described the administration’s approach as an “escalate and blame” strategy—ratcheting up rhetoric, deflecting responsibility, and ultimately endangering lives. “What they’re doing here is escalating the rhetoric and blaming the wrong people for the problems they are creating,” Munoz said. He warned that stigmatizing transgender people as uniquely dangerous could have repercussions far beyond the gun debate. “It’s going to make it harder for trans people to speak up and ask for help,” he explained. “This further stigmatizes a group of people and pushes them outside the bounds of medical care and social services, labeling them as dangerous. That’s a trope that has been used against the queer community, including trans people, for all-time, and it’s an ugly new face of old stigma.”
Munoz’s fears are not hypothetical. “I’m actually very afraid we’ll see more violence against trans people,” he said. “It’s not a reach to conclude that as people are told trans people are dangerous and armed, some will take it upon themselves to feel justified in perpetuating violence against a community that already faces tremendous stigma and persecution.” He further noted that transgender people are already struggling with limited access to medical care, legal protections, and basic safety. “Layering new restrictions that paint them as a public threat only increases their vulnerability. This is cruel,” Munoz concluded. “Instead of addressing gun violence with evidence-based solutions, this administration is targeting a marginalized group, escalating stigma, and putting lives at risk.”
The debate over gun violence and rights in America, it seems, is only intensifying. As students take to the streets demanding action and inclusion, and as policymakers consider controversial measures that critics say miss the mark, the nation finds itself at a crossroads. The voices of young people, like those in Michigan, and advocates such as Munoz, are calling for a reckoning with the real causes of violence and a rejection of scapegoating. Whether lawmakers will listen remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: the call for change is growing louder, and the stakes—for safety, justice, and community—have never felt higher.
