BILLINGS - The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas last week has prompted students across Montana to make their voices heard.
Ruby Lammers, 13, may only be in seventh grade, but she and other students across the country are speaking out against gun violence.
“It’s 2022. Stuff like this shouldn’t be happening,” said Lammers on Friday.
Lammers and her classmates at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Billings walked out of class Thursday for a moment of silence, hoping to send a message.
The action came a few days after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Texas.
“Spread awareness about gun violence in schools and to spread awareness about getting safer schools,” said Lammers.
She’s not the only Montana student wanting to be heard.
Fifteen-year-old Michael Moorman just graduated from eighth grade at Laurel Middle School.
“Schools teach us how to hide when there’s a school shooting, but yet when a kid shows signs of shooting up a school, they cover it up until it happens,” said Moorman.
He, like many others, was devastated by the news in Texas.
“I was sad that a person could do that and go into a school and harm little children that even can’t defend themselves,” said Moorman.
Moorman sent MTN News an email Wednesday detailing his frustrations with schools when it comes to bullying and mental health issues, as well as violence and drug use among kids.
“I don’t think that things are being taught what should be taught at schools and that we shouldn’t have to really worry about the schools having a threat to them,” said Moorman.
He said he's written multiple letters to his former principal and superintendent.
“School teaches us that mental health is a big deal but when a kid goes to the school and tells the school that they’re being bullied, the school will say we’ll get to it. It never does, it gets pushed to the side with the kid showing signs of becoming a sex offender or a killer,” Moorman said.
These letters, some of which received responses from school administrators, date back long before the shooting in Texas occurred.
He’s concerned that schools need to do more about mental health.
“I think it’s really important because it can lead to problems. Like the person in Texas, it’s obvious that he wasn’t in the right mental state where he should have been,” said Moorman.
Both students say that enough is enough.
“I just think that nothing’s really being done about it, and things need to be done,” said Moorman.
They hope their message can bring change to the community.
“I hope schools get safer, and I hope people do more to, like, educate about it and prevent things like this from happening again,” said Lammers.
