U.S. STUDENTS PLAN MARCHES TO SEEK STRICTER GUN LAWS
They are organising rallies, a walkout and challenging politicians who didn’t protect them
STUNNED by the deadliest high school shooting in United States history, students mobilised across the country on Sunday to organise rallies and a national walkout in support of stronger gun laws, challenging politicians they say have failed to protect them.
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former student is accused of murdering 17 people on Wednesday using an assault-style rifle, joined others on social media to plan the events, including a Washington march.
“I felt like it was our time to take a stand,” said Lane Murdock, 15, of Connecticut.
“We’re the ones in these schools. We’re the ones who are having shooters come into our classrooms and our spaces.”
Murdock, who lives 32km from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were shot to death five years ago, drew more than 50,000 signatures on an online petition on Sunday calling on students to walk out of their high schools on April 20.
Instead of going to classes, she urged her fellow students to stage protests on the 19th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Students from the Florida high school are planning a “March for Our Lives” in Washington on March 24 to call attention to school safety and ask lawmakers to enact gun control.
They plan to rally for gun control, mental health issues and school safety tomorrow in Tallahassee, the state capital. The students were expected to meet a lawmaker who is seeking to ban the sale of assault-style weapons, like the AR-15 allegedly used in the school shooting.
The demands for change by many still too young to vote inflamed the country’s long-simmering debate between advocates for gun control and gun ownership.
The White House said Trump planned to host “a listening session” with high school students and teachers tomorrow, but did not specify which students or school would be involved.
Democratic leaders vowed to redouble efforts to fight the nation’s powerful gun lobby to reduce violence from firearms.
“We’re the adults. We’re the leaders in this country who are supposed to keep our children safe — and again and again, our country has let them down,” Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez tweeted.