In early December, “lockdown, locks, lights, out of sight” echoed from the loudspeakers in Edina High School. Teachers locked classroom doors as students hid, prayed and texted their families that they loved them. 

It was a false alarm. 

For Aditi Jha, an 11th grader at EHS, the fear she witnessed was another example of why she is passionate about gun safety. 

Jha is one of six students who spent the past year writing a bill requiring firearms left in vehicles on school property to be unloaded and locked in a container out of plain sight. The rule would extend to events sanctioned by the Minnesota State High School League.

The proposal would also remove principals’ authority to allow someone to carry a firearm on campus, except for student resource officers. Principals and superintendents across the state submitted testimony in support of the bill.

The students said the changes would help prevent firearm theft and reduce the risk of guns being in the wrong hands near schools. Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt testified in favor of the measure and said her office recovered hundreds of stolen firearms in 2025.

The bill stalled in the House after a party-line tie vote in the Education Policy Committee on Feb. 25, with all Republicans voting against it. The group will present the bill to the Senate within the next few weeks. 

The outcome of the House committee hearing was frustrating, Jha said, as some lawmakers who opposed the bill were on their phone for parts of the testimony or did not participate in the discussion — but still voted no.

“That hurt me a lot,” Jha said. 

University of Minnesota fourth-year Matthew Smeaton, who helped write and present the bill, said he suspects it was ultimately killed over politics, though some Republicans teetered on voting yes. 

“People will offer lip service,” Smeaton said. “They’ll say, ‘I’m going to vote no because I have genuine concerns about it, but I really feel for you.’ But the real test is to watch how they vote.” 

The desks of 10-year-old Harper Moyski and 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel sat outside the House committee room during the hearing. The two students were killed, and dozens were wounded when a shooter fired into a church at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. On the Capitol’s front lawn, 60 desks were set up by Annunciation parents representing the children lost to gun violence since 2021.

As lawmakers walk past those desks every day and hear testimonies, Jha hopes they move beyond traditional party gun views.

“Violent and terrible things are happening to our state’s kids,” Jha said. “It just seems to me that we’ve just gotten to a point where lawmakers are so detached.” 

Firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., according to the Sandy Hook Promise. Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, more than 428 schools have experienced shootings, impacting nearly 400,000 students.

Jha is hopeful the bill will progress in the Senate, calling it a common-sense bill. Every constitutional right comes with responsibilities, she said. 

“We have the right to free speech, does that mean you can yell fire in a movie theater? No it doesn’t,” Jha said.

Claire Albrecht, a law student at the university and student attorney with its Gun Violence Prevention Clinic, said the bill does not intrude on Second Amendment rights. 

Albrecht, along with a university law professor, Megan Walsh, testified on behalf of the bill. Walsh, director of the clinic, said the Second Amendment allows for heightened safety regulations in schools, and the majority of Minnesotans support regulations like those in the bill. 

Albrecht said it is inspiring to see young people continuing to steward gun violence prevention.

“Young people will keep coming up with new solutions and new opinions,” Albrecht said. “This isn’t the end of gun violence prevention. It’s the middle of the story.”

Smeaton said he grew up in the fight for gun safety and remembers participating in school walkouts and talking to lawmakers. Today’s youth are tomorrow’s voters and policymakers, he added. 

“If we as youth continue to suffer by the hands of inaction, someday soon we will just make the changes ourselves,” Smeaton said.

Though it is easy to get pessimistic, Jha believes it is important to remain civically involved. 

“Keep trying, keep contacting your legislators and just do what you can. Because, you know, it only takes a small group of people to change the world.”