Ar 15 Enough Is Enough Never Again
Angry and raw with emotion, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Loftier School in Parkland took their pain, grief and call for activeness to the very steps of Florida lawmakers, demanding common-sense gun control to stem the tide of violence in the state and across the nation.
Sheryl Acquaroli, a junior who survived the Feb. xiv massacre at her high schoolhouse, took the stage at the Old Capitol to rails against lawmakers in Congress and the Legislature. She was met past cries of "We love you" from the audience.
"How can you claim to represent the people but let your kids go slaughtered like animals at their ain school?" she shouted. "The 17 who were lost were not just a number ... they are people with stories and histories and families. You will not turn these 17 human beings into a statistic. Yous volition not plow a blind middle to who they are. They are our students, our teachers and our coaches. And they died because y'all failed. And they are bigger heroes than y'all volition ever be."
More coverage from the NeverAgain rally:
►Parkland shooting could exist 'tipping point' in 2022 races
► Invoking the memory of their lost classmates, Parkland students urge legislative action on guns
► My view from the Capitol backyard: Students lead a movement, find their voice
► A day for students to say, 'Never again' at Capitol
► FAMU students feel impact of gun violence, march to support Douglas students at Capitol
► Florida State students march for tighter gun laws
► Local athletes, coaches reflect on Douglas High shooting, #NeverAgain rally
Florence Yared, an upperclassman at Stoneman Douglas, recalled that afterwards the Sandy Hook Unproblematic School shooting in 2012, she cut out paper snowflakes and mailed them to the schoolhouse to laurels the dead. She never imagined she could confront the same horror.
"Exactly one calendar week agone, my school was viciously attacked," she said. "Seventeen of my classmates, friends and teachers died. No longer could I walk the halls I walked millions of times before without fear and sadness. No longer could I walk the halls without hearing the gunshots. No longer could I walk the halls without imagining the blood stains and expressionless bodies, all because of the harm a unmarried AR-15 burglarize caused."
Wednesday's rally was 1 of the biggest — and most deafening — the Capitol has seen in years. Capitol Police force said that by noon, an estimated 3,000 people had gathered at the Erstwhile Capitol for the event, which was sponsored past the Florida League of Women Voters and the Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Police officials said it was a peaceful protestation with no counter-demonstrations or arrests.
Hundreds of students, including high schoolers from Parkland, Tallahassee, Jacksonville and elsewhere, marched from Florida Land and Florida A&M universities to the Capitol. They carried signs calling for gun control and chanted "Never again!," "Vote them out!" and "Enough is enough!" The students were joined by Democratic lawmakers, gun-control activists and others who said they'd had enough inaction from Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature.
While the rally went on exterior, most 100 students from the Broward County school met with lawmakers and other officials. Coordinated by state Sen. Lauren Volume, D-Plantation, they had 70 meetings scheduled throughout the mean solar day, including with Senate President Joe Negron, R-Palm City, and incoming Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton. They met with House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-State O'Lakes, and had talks set with Educational activity Commissioner Pam Stewart, Master Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, and Gov. Rick Scott.
Mark Kelly, whose married woman, quondam Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was gravely wounded by a gunman in 2011, told the Parkland students he was "unbelievably impressed" by them. Merely he likewise urged young people, who typically turn out to vote in modest numbers, to get to election boxes this yr.
"You guys woke the state up," he said. "At present the goal is to keep them awake."
Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, recalled the 2022 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people, including one of his friends, and wounded dozens more. After he was start elected later that year, he filed a bill to ban military assault weapons and big capacity magazines. It went nowhere.
"Vii months after the Pulse shooting, we got no hearing," Smith said. "Just one day later was the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting. We got no hearing. A hundred and fifty-one days later was the workplace shooting in my commune in east Orlando. We got no hearing.
"Two hundred and sixty-nine days later was Las Vegas. We got no hearing. Three hundred and four days later was Sutherland Springs. We got no hearing. Four hundred and five days later on was Parkland. Are we going to get a (expletive) hearing?"
Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami, whose push to hear Smith's bill (HB 219) was voted downward by Republicans on Tuesday, told the youthful crowd that the people in power had failed them. He urged them non to give up as they fight for tougher gun laws.
"There will be those that claim nosotros are attempting to run over the 2nd Amendment," McGhee said. "There volition exist those that say we are trying to accept guns from the American people. But we are here to tell the aforementioned people in that location'southward also the Eighth Amendment, which says that it is cruel and unusual punishment to let our people, our kids, our teachers to be gunned down in schools and on the streets."
Mayor Andrew Gillum, who led the march from FSU to the Capitol, recalled the Sandy Claw shooting, which killed 20 unproblematic school students and six staff members.
"The difference between what happened then and what happened a week agone today was that at Sandy Hook, those were babies, whose words were barely formed," Gillum said. "And at present what nosotros have today is immature people speaking out all beyond this state, all across this country with the ability of their voice, with the power of their compassion, with the ability of their ideas, with the power of their spirit that says enough is enough. That'due south what's going to be the power to go the kind of change that we need."
Sarah Leitch, a high school senior from Jacksonville, traveled to Tallahassee to take part in the FSU march and the rally at the Capitol. She waved a sign saying, "One child is worth more than all the guns on earth."
"Even if goose egg gets changed, it'due south so of import to have our voices heard," she said. "And nosotros need to evidence lawmakers that if they desire to go along being conceited about gun violence, they're not going to get re-elected."
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @JeffBurlew. Democrat reporters Jeffrey Schweers, Ashley White and Karl Etters contributed.
Source: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/02/21/thousands-students-descend-florida-capitol-demand-gun-control/361113002/
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