We woke up early today – up by 8 am – to go down to Harriet Island and march with kids from around the state to the capitol in support of common sense gun legislation. Dak dropped Anders and me off, and we met with kids and teachers from his school. We marched across the river, a sea of freezing, sniffling kids who mostly weren’t dressed appropriately for the weather (there was a girl in a T-SHIRT!). I wasn’t dressed especially appropriately either; the wind was worse than we expected and my face felt numb pretty quickly. After crossing the bridge, more people joined from the streets of St. Paul on the way up to the Capitol building. People cheered the group on from up in the skyways and from the sidewalks. It was cold, but the walking and chanting and sense of community warmed us.

At the Capitol, a group from a church met us with palm fronds, coffee, and snacks. Other church groups cheered the kids on. The speeches were heartbreaking. Gun violence has affected so many, and the young people who spoke today were emotional and eloquent.

As we hit our breaking point with the cold and began to contemplate leaving, we saw a group of counter-protesters that were entirely too close to the marchers, clearly making trouble. The state patrol had surrounded them to keep both sides safe at that point, and they retreated to the steps of a nearby building. Then I saw a older guy with a long dark coat and his hood up walk toward the crowd. He was alone, which was weird since it was a kids march, and I saw his hat under his hood had a giant red “NRA” emblazoned on it. He disappeared into the crowd. As we turned to leave, there was another guy in a long dark coat standing with a cameraman interviewing someone with the Capitol building and protest in the background. He had a big, gaudy AR-15 pin on his lapel. Some of the protesters nearby kept chanting to make noise.

All of the counter-protesters, trolls, and this ad hoc gun media team were older white guys. I just left wondering, who gets up early in the morning on a freezing cold Saturday to go troll a bunch of high school (and younger) kids? The guy with the long coat was actually kind of scary; why would you do that? It felt threatening. I suppose that was the point.

It took hours before I felt reheated after we got home. That’s ok. I’m glad I woke up way too early for this. It was important. We need change.