‘We have the same enemy here’
Parkland shooting survivor joins crowd outside Sen. Toomey’s office demanding gun reform
A crowd of about 100 students, teachers, community leaders and activists gathered on Grant Street outside Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey’s office to demand his support of commonsense gun safety legislation Tuesday afternoon.
David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting that killed 17 people and a cofounder of March for Our Lives, spoke outside the Grant Building, leading chants and emphasizing a theme of unity.
“Senator Toomey, we want to meet with you,” he said. “We have the same enemy here, which is gun violence and we want you to act in a morally courageous and right way.”
He told attendees instead of focusing on what we can’t agree on, the country needs to start focusing on what we can agree on and voting for change.
“We need Republicans and gun owners in this fight,” Mr. Hogg said. “I can respect the fact that you don’t agree with me, but I can’t respect the fact that we can’t do anything to save our kids.”
The event was headed by the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT), which is seeking commonsense laws for background checks, red flag legislation and bans on high-capacity magazines.
Instead of arming teachers to protect students, Rob Mitchell, Pittsburgh Public School educator and PFT board member, said politicians should arm educators and kids with the law.
“Ban the assault rifles and high-capacity magazines that shoot up our classrooms and protect us with background checks and red flag laws that help keep guns away from the people who use them against us in our classrooms, or grocery stores, or wherever we might just be going about our day,” Mr. Mitchell said.
Christian Johnson, 16, who recently graduated from a city school, said he had experienced at least five shooting threats and multiple bomb threats during his educational career.
“School should be safe,” Mr. Johnson said. “No child should fear for their life while in the pursuit of education. Students shouldn’t need to go to school in riot gear to feel safe. We shouldn’t need bulletproof bookbags to feel safe.”
Mr. Hogg pointed out Pennsylvania’s political power, calling it “one of the most important places in the United States of America for the future of our country right now.”
“The state races in the state of Pennsylvania are the most important races in the future of our country, not just because of 2022 but even more because of 2024,” Mr. Hogg said.
State Rep. Summer Lee, who beat out Steve Irwin in Penn-sylvania’s 12th Congressional District Democratic primary contest, also was in attendance on Tuesday. She called demonstrations such as this one “an important part of the electoral process.”
She also mentioned that banning assault rifles has popular support from the American people.
“What we’re seeing is a democracy that’s not reflecting the electorate so these are opportunities to show our elected officials where their people stand and that’s important,” Ms. Lee said.
Following an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 kids and two adults, Mr. Toomey wrote on Twitter that he believes “that requiring background checks on all commercial sales of firearms is a completely reasonable policy that does not infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens.”
Last Wednesday, Mr. Toomey, R-Pa., said that an “effort is underway” in the upper chamber to find a bipartisan compromise.
In 2013, Mr. Toomey introduced an amendment with Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., following a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that killed 20 children. The proposed amendment required gun sellers to conduct background checks on buyers.
Yet, the bill never saw a passing vote, in 2013 or later when reintroduced again in 2016.
“It’s our job for future generations to do our duty to not just move on but to show up every single year and march with us,” Mr. Hogg said. “Speeches don’t change laws, people change laws, voters change laws.”