When youth join together in a movement like this past weekend’s March for Our Lives, they make a statement heard loud and clear.

In Oxford alone, several hundred joined the march, with many speaking out that it’s time for the risks of gun violence at schools to end.

Their points are well taken: Am I next? Can’t something be done?

The options for creating safer schools, and therefore safer communities, run much deeper than the obvious, banning weapons.

Suggestions from one high school student who had done lots of homework on the issue included how Mississippi handles the treatment of those with mental health disorders, protects schools and the purchase of firearms.

All of these areas, the student said, are where the state is currently failing in terms of preventing gun violence.

The Oxford High School student, Cooper Thomason, had framed these thoughts after speaking to psychiatrist Tim Kelly, Oxford Police Chief Joey East, and Bryan McCloskey with the Oxford FBI office.

In other words, these young people did more than march. They have done their homework. And they want to be heard.

It was impressive how youth from Oxford to Washington, D.C. made such a statement loud and clear.

We hope politicians are listening because the students are right. There is more we can do.