Last week, Alyssa Lee helped lead hundreds of students who walked out of Houston County High as a way to remember those who lost their lives at a shooting in Parkland, Florida. After she knew she wanted to do more than just remember the victims, she wanted to act.
“We just don’t want people to die,” Lee said. “We want more change.”
That's why this Saturday, she and some of her classmates will hit the streets of Atlanta for the March for Our Lives. Their mission is to strengthen gun control laws.
“I don’t think that we should wait until this affects Georgia itself because it will be too late then,” Lee said. “I think, definitely, right now, we have the chance and us protesting shows them we are being serious.”
She isn’t the only one from Central Georgia going -- so is Warner Robins High junior Emily Howell.
“I don’t think that we should have to play defense as schools,” Howell said. “I think it shouldn’t be on us, it shouldn’t be on our principals to say this is how were preventing this.”
Lee already has an idea of what she’d like lawmakers to do to keep her and her peers safe.
“Banning bump stocks, more background checks, just regular common-sense legislation,” Lee said. “Not to ban all guns, but to just make sure that the wrong people don’t get the guns.”
She says those demands will be front and center when the march arrives at the state capitol.
“This one step we’re taking to go to this march is proving that we can start something and we will be the change,” Lee said. “We have had enough.”