Noblesville students call for better Indiana gun safety laws

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Students from Noblesville Schools visited the Indiana Statehouse on Tuesday to plead to lawmakers for gun safety laws. 

Members of Students Demand Action Nobesville said they were devastated in May when a Noblesville West Middle School seventh-grader shot two people there. 

A group of Noblesville High School students looked up lawmakers’ schedules and tracked down Sen. Victoria Spartz, a Republican from Noblesville, in a Statehouse hallway. 

“Would you vote in favor of a bill for safe storage laws?” Noblesville High School senior Emily Cole asked. 

Spartz said she’d have to look over the structure of a bill before deciding. 

The students are advocating for a bill aimed at stronger gun storage laws after prosecutors said the Noblesville school shooter pulled guns from his family’s gun safe. 

Under House Bill 1040, “failure to secure a gun that results in the injury or death of another person” could result in a felony charge. Rep. John Bartlett, a Democrat from Indianapolis, authored the bill. 

Spartz offered to visit Nobesville Schools to talk more about the issues.

The students were disappointed in her response when asked by Noblesville High School freshman Nolan Weaver if she thought a bill “to make sure that kids can’t get guns” was a good idea. 

“I don’t want to comment on the gun bills because we have so many bills,” Spartz said. 

Noblesville Schools excused the kids for their Statehouse visit. Weaver was an eighth-grader at the middle school when the shooting happened there. 

“I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I had to go through on that day,” he said. 

The students say they also left a message trying to reach State Rep. Chuck Goodrich, a Republican from Noblesville. 

They also spoke with State Rep. Ed Delaney, a Democrat from Indianapolis who encouraged them to keep up their passion.