photo credit: Sonnenberg Shots // Shutterstock
Students in Florida who survived the deadly school shooting last week that killed 17 people, have decided to fight back against gun violence.
The students have planned two events: National School Walk Out on March 14 and March for Our Lives on March 24. Both events are geared towards Congress to pay more attention to stopping gun violence and having more gun control in our country. Along with the marches, students have formed a group, #NeverAgain.
The Walk Out calls for students, faculty, parents, and others to walk out of school for 17 minutes — one minute for each person who was killed in the Florida school shooting. While on March 24th for March for Our Lives, students and activists plan to march on Washington, DC, and other US cities.
Alex Wind, one of the survivors of the Florida shooting, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press: “We’re marching because it’s not just schools. It’s movie theaters, it’s concerts, it’s nightclubs. This kind of stuff can’t just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives, we’re marching for the 17 lives we lost. And we’re marching for our children’s lives and our children’s children and their children.”
Several rallies have taken place in Florida since the shooting where another survivor Emma Gonzalez spoke, “Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call BS,” Gonzales said. “They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. … They say that no laws could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS.”
The Women who organized the very successful march the day after Trump’s Inauguration back in 2016, have joined the teens to help push their message.
“Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school,” Women’s March organizers, who are setting up the school walkout, said in a statement. “Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day.”
The real question is will this change anything? We have had so many acts of violence in the past year alone within this country. After each one, the same discussions are had about gun violence and how to make our country safer, but no changes ever truly come. A few weeks pass and everyone goes back to their daily lives until the next tragedy. Something must be done. We may not have all the answers to the problems and it may take a little patience when trying to find a solution with so many peoples opinions involved, but one thing is for sure, something definitely needs to change with the gun policies in our country.
Written by Clarke Jones