A REAL DOM-DOM
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PORT ST. LUCIE — Jordan Farber was just a Mets fan. The senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High attended the 2015 World Series and like any other teenage Mets fan, meeting David Wright would have been a dream come true, a memory for a lifetime.
But under these circumstances, Farber and his schoolmates, all survivors of the Parkland school shooting who were at First Data Field Friday, have become more than just average teenagers. After watching their friends, classmates, teachers and coaches slaughtered in the shooting on Feb. 14, they continue to use their voices and take their message of changing gun laws to any platform they can find.
Friday, they spoke out after a pregame ceremony at First Data Field.
“We’ll be all over the country making sure our message is heard that this is the last school shooting ever. Because Columbine, Sandy Hook, that’s when it should have ended,” Jordan Farber said. “When little elementary school students had to pass away, and their parents living with the grief of their 5-year-old, 7-yearold, 6-year-old child passing away. That’s when it should have ended. We’re going to change this definitely,” the senior said.
Farber and his friends are mourning and honoring the 17 victims with their activism.
“We’re the students that are going to make a difference. You are not going to stop seeing us until we get the changes made we want to see. We’re never stopping until we get that,” said Bailey Feuerman, a 15-year-old sophomore who has been a strong voice for gun control after the shooting.
One of the 400 students who went to Tallahassee last week to push for more stringent gun laws, Feuerman watched as Florida lawmakers voted down a motion to hear a bill that would ban assault weapons, just a week after the shooting. She and her schoolmates were not deterred.
“Stricter gun control. Stricter background checks. We want all AR-15s to be banned, because nobody should have to experience a tragedy like our school experienced,” Feuerman said.
Calling this an American issue, Farber said it is also a life-ordeath issue for his generation.
“Not just AR-15s,” Farber said of their agenda, citing the gun that the murderer used in his school. “All automatic weapons. I do believe in the Second Amendment. I do believe in self defense. You can be armed with a handgun or a gun that’s not meant for war, like an AR-15. That is meant for war, it’s intent is to kill. That should be banned. One-hundred percent banned.”
Friday at the ballpark was meant to be a distraction for them, but their thoughts never go very far from that horrific Wednesday afternoon, or the friends they lost.
“I am so thankful baseball is with us, it’s been really tough. I lost three friends,” Devon Wiesenfeld, an 18-year old senior, said. “I lost three really close friends. One girl, Carmen Schentrup, I sat next to the hour before. Just being here makes everything a lot easier. I just hope this never happens to anybody ever again. Myself, my friends and everybody in Stoneman Douglas are all together as a community. We’re going to change the world. Change the world so that this never happens to anyone.”
Sammy Feuerman, a senior at Stoneman Douglas, took off his hat to show his dyed hair, in honor of a friend, Joaquin Oliver, who was lost in the shooting.
“I just want to do it to honor him,” Feuerman said. “He was just an amazing person. It’s
just really hard.” HOWARD SIMMONS/DAILY NEWS