Loyola, Miami players react to National Walkout Day, share views on gun control

DALLAS — Loyola senior guard Donte Ingram knows what it’s like to lose a friend to gun violence.

Two years ago, Ingram’s former Simeon High School teammate Saieed Ivey was shot and killed in Los Angeles.

Thousands of students in Chicago and the suburbs walked out of class Wednesday morning in protest of gun control.

The National Walkout Day, which was sparked by a shooting last month in Parkland, Florida, was officially timed for 17 minutes — one minute for every victim killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Ingram believes there needs to be stronger restrictions on who can own guns.

“I think there needs to be rules, who can be owners of guns,” Ingram said. “I think they need to tighten down on that … There’s a lot of people especially in the city of Chicago who owns guns that shouldn’t.”

Loyola senior forward Andre Jackson, on the other hand, believes gun control isn’t a black-and-white issue.

“It’s guns and the people. You have two sides to the story,” Jackson said. “You have people who know and who are responsible, so I wouldn’t say all guns are bad. But you have people who misuse them.”

Three Miami players said they felt personally affected by last month’s shooting. Marjory Stoneman Douglas is located an hour north of the University of Miami’s main campus.

Miami, which plays Loyola Thursday in the first round of March Madness, wore shirts during their warmup to honor the victims after the shooting.

Freshman guard Lonnie Walker IV admitted he struggled to cope with the Parkland school shooting and said his friends had family and friends at that school.

“Seeing the negativity and the people upsetting crime, it definitely impacts you in a personal way,” Walker IV said. “Most people went to that school to get educated, be knowledgeable and learn and look forward to their future lives. So the fact that … they got taken away too quickly is one of the sadder things.

“It definitely has to be struck, especially because of this national walk, we have to take this seriously because Lord knows what could happen next. But it’s all about how we want to make a change.”

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