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Michigan State Students Protest ‘It Could’ve Been Me’

Michigan State University held a vigil on campus Wednesday night for the three students killed Monday and the five still fighting to recover.

This was one way to mourn and funnel energy toward the cause, but there are others.

Like a protest, which hundreds of students chose to do on the capitol steps Wednesday morning.

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Maya Manuel was one of thousands of Spartans forced to lockdown as a gunman was on the run after shooting eight of her classmates. She was scared, she was angry and she knew then that she had to do something with these emotions.

“I said we need to sit down. We need to stay seated because it doesn’t matter how much we’re screaming and yelling, they’re not going to listen to us,” Manuel says.

Manuel, other students and gun control activists spoke in front of dozens of lawmakers pushing for some change out of Lansing.

Many lawmakers even took to the podium themselves.

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“The fact that we have kids at Michigan State who survive the Oxford High School shooting only to relive another shooting is not OK. The fact that there is a kid at Michigan State who survived the Sandy Hook shooting only to relive it again is not OK,” Senator Mallory McMorrow, a Republican from Royal Oak, said.

But these students have heard it before and not seen anything change.

Manuel told all the lawmakers to leave the steps and sit in front of the students they swear to defend, to promise action and not rhetoric.

“When the governor wanted her tax plan passed the leadership made it happen in a few weeks. Soon is not enough,” one student says.

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Among the activists were parents from Oxford. They’ve been pushing for change for 13 months.

“It just was overwhelming. It took us back to day one,” Andrea Jones, from Change for Oxford says.

It’s not all about gun control, but just some sort of change; guns, safety or mental health.

“The ratio for students to counselors is a huge problem across this country. When a counselor has 300 students that they have to communicate and connect with, it’s very difficult to reach those kids.” Jones says.

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The students admit they don’t have the answers, they just have a request, a plea, to do something before tragedy strikes again.

“I don’t really have a lot of words. I don’t know what change will entail soon, but we just want... we just want something to change,” Manuel says.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer spoke at Wednesday’s vigil, and it was reported that her and the Spartans Basketball Coach Tom Izzo visited with survivors at Sparrow Hospital earlier in the day Wednesday.



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