Frustrated students vent: ‘Shame on you!’
Before day of protests, lawmakers vote down gun control
TALLAHASSEE – Scores of students from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School rallied alongside hundreds from other schools Wednesday as their fervent demands for safe schools and an end to gun violence gained momentum across the nation.
Students from California to Washington, D.C., held walkouts in solidarity with the teens from Parkland, survivors of last week’s shooting rampage that left 17 people dead and prompted outrage at the National Rifle Association and lawmakers.
The energized crowd at the state Capitol waved signs and chanted, “Never again!” and “Shame on you!”
Lorenzo Prado, a Stoneman Douglas junior, choked up as he told of being mistaken for the gunman in the chaotic minutes after the shooting started. He said a SWAT team ordered him to the ground at gunpoint and handcuffed him. Prado, near tears, said he felt guilty for the people he could not protect.
“Many would blame this event on the FBI’s lack of action or the Trump administration,” Prado said. “The simple fact is that the laws of this beloved country allowed for the deranged gunman to purchase a gun legally.”
Florence Yared, 17, joined the chorus of students saying they won’t feel safe when they return to school next week.
“No longer can I walk the halls I walked a million times before without fear and sadness,” she said. “All because of the damage that a single AR-15 rifle caused.”
The rally came one day after Florida lawmakers rejected — along party lines in the heavily GOP Statehouse — a ban on many semiautomatic rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines. Many of the Parkland students voiced support for such a ban. State lawmakers expressed support for other proposals endorsed by the students, such as deeper background checks.
Later Wednesday, President Trump met with student survivors, parents and teachers at the White House in what was billed as a “listening session.”
“It’s not going to be talk like it has been in the past,” said Trump, who vowed tougher background checks and mental health screens for gun buyers.
The Parkland students met in small groups with state lawmakers, and many of the teens expressed frustration.
“I was speechless. I had anger, dis- may, shock,” Spencer Blum, 16, a junior, said of the Statehouse vote. “They had even introduced us, they knew we were up there. The beautiful choir sang a prayer for us. They knew we just went through a mass shooting that killed 17 people.”
About 200 students at Oasis High School in Cape Coral, Fla., walked out to the school’s tennis courts, demanding more security and resource officers. “I support it 100%,” said Jacquelin Collins, superintendent of the Cape Coral charter school system.
Curtis Rhodes, superintendent of schools in Needville, Texas, promised a three-day suspension for protesters, parental note or not. “Life is all about choices, and every choice has a consequence whether it be positive or negative,” Rhodes warned.
In Washington, hundreds of students outside the White House chanted, “No guns, no NRA, no violence in the USA!” Hundreds at the Capitol shouted, “Enough is enough!”
Paloma Mallan, 16, said the teens skipped school to march on the White House because it’s up to them to bring about change. “It seems like there’s been shooting after shooting, and the adults in power right now aren’t doing anything,” Paloma said. “It could be us next, it could be one of our friends.”
Bacon reported from McLean, Va. Contributing: Nada Hassanein, Tallahassee Democrat; Sarah Jarvis, The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press; Gregory Korte; Marilyn Icsman and Erin Kelly, USA TODAY
“No longer can I walk the halls I walked a million times before without fear and sadness.” Florence Yared, 17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School