Students hope to pressure lawmakers to change Florida’s gun laws
The survivors of Wednesday’s massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland will be headed to Tallahassee. The group hopes to present Florida Gov. Rick Scott with a petition to ban the sales of the AK 15 rifle the model of gun that was used to kill 17 students at their high school as well as 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
The announcement was made on Sunday to NBC News in an interview. Jaclyn Corin, a student who organized the trip to Tallahassee.
“We are the ones that looked into Nikolas Cruz’s eyes. We took 17 bullets to the heart. We are the only ones who can speak up,” Corin said. “We have to be the adults in this situation because clearly people have us failed us in the government, and we must make the change now because we’re the only ones who are going to.”
The goal of the students hopes to change preexisting bills, specifically those focusing on the assault rifles.
All of the students are part of the “Never Again” movement. It is “a student led movement. They hope to meet not only with Gov. Scott and other members of legislature.
The students were quick to point out that this is not Republicans or Democrats issue, is a chance to give Florida lawmakers to change the gun laws that have put students in the state in peril.
Tallahassee is just the start of the action theses teenagers are getting ready to take. They have support from high schools, colleges not only in the United States and worldwide.
While, these teenagers, most of whom are not old enough to vote yet, are organizing a march in Washington, D.C. and in other cities around the country on March 24 to call for stricter gun control legislation to prevent yet another mass shooting — at a school or elsewhere — from happening in the United States.
The Sunday political talk shows all were focused on the shooting and he students were pointed as well as passionate as they attempted to drive home their points.
“My message for the people in office is this: You’re either with us or against us,” Cameron Kasky, a junior at the high school and organizer, told CNN on Sunday morning. “We are losing our lives while the adults are playing around.”
“How many more students are going to have to die and have their blood spilt in American classrooms trying to make the world a better place just because politicians refuse to take action?” asked David Hogg, a student who survived the shooting, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning.