March for Our Lives brings Washington, Parkland, and Canadian students to the streets
On March 24, 2018, March for Our Lives brought hundreds of thousands of students and their allies to the streets of over 800 cities and towns — including a few in Canada — to rally for gun control.
After the Parkland, Fla. shooting on Feb. 14, 2018, in which 17 students and teachers were shot and killed by a 19-year-old with an AR-15, high schoolers demanded their U.S. legislators strengthen gun laws by making bump stocks illegal, raising the legal age to purchase a gun (it is currently 18 years of age), banning the sale of assault weapons, and banning high-capacity magazines. Unfortunately, many critics came forward calling the march a conspiracy against the gun lobby, and stating that it is “too soon to talk about gun control.” Emma Gonzalez — a Parkland shooting survivor and now household name — is determined to make sure that she will have been part of the “last mass shooting.” On Feb. 21, she and other Parkland shooting survivors and their families took to the stage at a town hall hosted by CNN and Jake Tapper. Survivors, students, teachers, and families were given the opportunity to talk to Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson, Congressman Ted Deutch, Sheriff Scott Israel from Broward County, and Dana Loesch from the National Rifle Association (NRA). At this town hall, Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, and Ryan Schacter among others asked the legislators and NRA spokesperson pointed, tactful questions regarding gun control and gun reform.
Planning for the March for Our Lives campaign began at the end of February. Musical performances included Lin Manuel Miranda, Ben Platt, Jennifer Hudson, and more. The stage also welcomed powerful words from 11-year-old Naomi Wadler who brought intersectionality to the forefront of the injustice. Another inspirational teen, 17-year-old Kasky, acknowledged the broken system and wished Nicholas Dworet, a victim of the shooting, a happy birthday, as he would have turned 18 that day. The final speaker of the night was Gonzalez, whose speech spanned a little over six minutes and 20 seconds, with the majority of it being spent in silence to demonstrate the time it took for the shooter to take the lives of 17 students and teachers. Kasky created a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of Saturday’s march and his initiative raised more than $3.5 million. With these funds, students can hopefully convince U.S. lawmakers to take them seriously. David Hogg, another mass shooting survivor, summed up the movement with his words from the march: “We are going to make this the voting issue. We are going to take this to every election, to every state, and every city. When politicians send their thoughts and prayers with no actions, we say ‘no more.’ And to those politicians supported by the NRA, that allow the continued slaughter of our children and our future, I say ‘get your résumés ready.’”