Student journalists at Palo Alto High School are resorting to more than just words in their latest magazine issue.
The April 7 edition of the high school's Verde Magazine features a physical hole representing a bullet ripping through each and every page — a symbolic gesture in the wake of February's deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and subsequent marches nationwide clamoring for stricter gun control laws.
"The figurative but physical gunshot that pierces our magazine, visible every time you flip a page in our print magazine, aims to convey gun violence affects every part of life, and its consequences are inescapable," according to a statement from the magazine. "We realize that the hole might be jarring, but we believe such statements are necessary to confront disturbing realities."
The Palo Alto High students who run the magazine say a student artist designed the bullet fracture and then a drill-press was used after the magazines were printed to make a piercing, cutting off text, pictures and ads.
“No one is safe from bullets and so, in our magazine, no words are safe from the bullet,” said Editor in Chief Emma Cockerell.
On the magazine's cover, the actual hole sits just below a photo of what appears to be a student holding a sign flashing the phrase, "Enough is Enough."
“Nothing is safe from a bullet moving through space,” said Cockerell.
