Students across Minnesota walked out of classes Friday to demand greater gun control following the mass shooting at Annunciation Church in south Minneapolis that left two students dead and 21 other people injured.

The walkouts were part of a national demonstration coordinated by Students Demand Action, which formed after the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Rayah Tolles, a sophomore at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts, marched with dozens of her classmates to the Capitol for a rally calling for bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

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“Sometimes I don’t even want to go to school because I’m afraid of what might happen,” Tolles said.

At Great River School in St. Paul, more than a hundred students filed out of class and into the parking lot carrying signs reading “Protect kids not guns” and “The scariest thing in school should be my grades not guns.”

Bella Carls-Rehovsky, a senior at Great River, said fear drove her to organize the demonstration with her fellow students after learning about the Annunciation shooting.

“Because coming to school every day with the risk of a shooting hanging over our heads is detrimental to everything,” Carls-Rehovsky said.

Carls-Rehovsky said she’s been participating in demonstrations and lobbying efforts for gun control since she was 10 years old, when her cousin died by gunfire. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States.

The student walk-outs add to the pressure on Minnesota lawmakers from gun control supporters, city leaders and the parents of victims of the Annunciation shooting to strengthen the state’s gun laws.

Gov. Tim Walz said earlier this week that he will call lawmakers back to St. Paul for a special session to consider gun control legislation including bans on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines. But the chances of such legislation passing seem dim in a closely divided Legislature.

Walz said he would release a package of policy proposals but has yet to do so.

House Republicans released a list of proposals on Thursday should there be a special session, but none involve guns. They include increased funding for school security and mental health treatment as well as reversing the state’s ban on youth conversion therapy, which aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

In 2023 and 2024, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a red flag law, which allows judges to confiscate firearms from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others, and a universal background check requirement. The Legislature also banned bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic guns to fire more rapidly like machine guns, and increased penalties for straw purchasers, or people who buy guns for someone who is prohibited from owning them.