RALEIGH -- Seventeen students of different ages from the area honored the seventeen killed in Parkland, Florida last week.

Not only did they light 17 candles and release 17 doves, but as Bella Terenzi says, they're fighting for gun control. 

“It’s kids. We don’t go into school wanting to have to be afraid. We want to go there to learn, get our education, and be able to succeed in life,” says Terenzi, a Senior at Panther Creek High School.

Joining her were hundreds of others, marching from Pullen Memorial Baptist Church to the State Capitol in Raleigh. 

Raleigh resident Kirsten Horton says, “I’m hoping that people finally wake up and believe that we have to change this. That we’re failing our children, we’re failing each other. Our government is failing us. We have to change.”

Research Triangle High School Senior Ryan Cherry explains, “I feel like it’s time to take action. This has been an issue for far too long and we need our legislators to act now and not just sit on their backs and just watch more school massacres occur. We need change now.”

Discussions of gun control always bring passionate debate.

Grass Roots North Carolina President F. Paul Valone says in a statement:

"We admire the passion of students marching tonight to solve the problem of mass killings in schools --  a problem Grass Roots North Carolina has been trying to solve for many years. Unfortunately, passion does not equate to effective public policy and, if recent tragedies demonstrate anything, it is the repeated failure of gun control to stop violent sociopaths. The short term solution should be to adopt the Israeli model and arm teachers who volunteer and obtain training. Long term, must instill in our youth the sense of right and wrong which has for decades been weakened by moral relativism."

For those marching, they hope they've honored the lives lost well. 

“Being able to say I’m sorry, your light will carry on in this world. We will not forget about you,” says Terenzi.​

Cherry goes on to say, “Very emotional moment for me definitely. It makes me sad to see all these lives that were taken. And it was a nice moment for me to hope for the future.”