Parkland students hold rally, mourn classmates
PARKLAND, Fla. — Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida walked out of their classrooms Wednesday and held a brief rally on the football field before making their way to makeshift memorials for their fallen classmates where they cried, embraced and called for new gun control measures.
It was a month to the day after a former student wielding an AR-15 assault-style rifle strode into one of the school buildings and opened fire, killing 14 students and three staff members.
The Parkland protest was echoed in schools across the nation as students staged 17-minute walkouts — one minute for each of the shooting victims — aimed at pressuring federal lawmakers to enact gun control laws.
The rally came less than a week after Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, citing the students’ actions, signed into law a bill that raises the minimum age for the purchase of long guns, including assault weapons. The bill also extends the three-day waiting period for handguns to long guns and creates a program to enable some teachers or other school employees to carry guns.
For some of the students, the bill was a sign of progress but didn’t go far enough.
“We are here to protest because we know that more can be done, not just statewide but nationwide,” said Stoneman Douglas junior Susana Matta, 17.
Students have organized a march on Washington for later this month and since the shooting have taken trips to Washington and the Florida capital of Tallahassee to confront lawmakers.