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2018 March For Our Lives
Topic Started: Mar 24 2018, 02:47 AM (93 Views)
Webster
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The Guardian: March for our Lives protests planned for 800 places across the world

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Hundreds of thousands of marchers are expected to descend on Washington DC on Saturday for a landmark gun control rally as calls for reform reach a fever pitch following the Parkland school shooting last month.

March for Our Lives events led by young people in over 800 locations around the world – including London, Sydney, Tokyo, Mumbai, plus hundreds of places in the US – will also take place as demonstrators demand that the US Congress, for decades dormant on gun control, pass sweeping legislative change.

The rally, organized by teenaged survivors of the 14 February school shooting that left 17 students and teachers dead, marks a shift in America’s gun control debate. All of the featured speakers at the rally will be teenagers, a spokeswoman for the march said, reflecting the frustration of the young gun control activists, who say the death of their classmates has forced them to tackle a crisis that adults have failed for decades to prevent.

Donald Trump, who has flip-flopped on his support for gun control measures and vowed to support the NRA, which spent more than $30m to back his campaign for the White House, left town on Friday evening and flew to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort.

The rally organizers say that they support Americans’ basic right to own guns, but they are demanding that Congress ban the military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines often used in high-profile mass shootings, as well as close loopholes in the nation’s background check requirements for gun sales.

A new survey of American teenagers and young adults found that gun violence was at the top of the list of issues they found most worrying. Americans under 18 were especially concerned, with 53% of them describing gun violence as a major worry. The USA Today/Ipsos poll found that more than one in three young people were planning to join the March for Our Lives protests, either in person or via social media.

Sheryl Acquaroli, a 16-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, said she knew immediately she would travel to Washington to join the march. “It’s going to be very revolutionary,” she said. “We are going to change laws there, and I want to be part of that change.”

Jon White, 47, whose daughter Katrina fled the school during the shooting, said: “I don’t have a lot of confidence in my generation. I believe in millennials. They’re going to make a difference.” Among the performers at the Saturday rally are Lin-Manuel Miranda, Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande.

As hundreds of students from Stoneman Douglas make the 1,000-mile journey to the nation’s capital, the Guardian announced an editorial collaboration with the school’s award-winning newspaper, the Eagle Eye.

On Friday, student editors took control of the Guardian’s website and published an array of articles, including an interview with independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who told them he believed the NRA’s grip on Congress “may be breaking a bit” because of their campaigning.

The Eagle Eye also published a manifesto of demands, including a call to ban the sale of high velocity semi-automatic weapons, expand background checks, and raise the minimum purchase age of rifles to 21. Members of the Eagle Eye’s editorial staff will also travel to Washington to cover the march as special correspondents for the Guardian.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Christopher Underwood, whose 14-year-old brother was fatally shot in 2012, says he lost his childhood to gun violence. “At the time, I was only five-years-old,” Christopher, 11, said. “I turned my pain and anger into action.”

Christopher ends his speech by quoting Martin Luther King Jr: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” “Our lives matter,” Christopher added.

The Guardian profiled Christopher in 2016...
-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/08/gun-violence-survivors-akeal-christopher-moms-demand-action
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The Guardian’s Sam Levin is at the March for our Lives in Oakland, California....

Jennie Drummond, a 26-year-old high school teacher, said she came to the Oakland march, because the Parkland shooting has impacted her school and is something that has left some of her students feeing afraid. “This was organized by the youth, but it’s important that they know the adults in their lives are behind them.”

Drummond said she has been forced to think about what she would do if a gunman showed up at her school: “There’s a lot more stress in my life,” she said, adding that she has made clear to her students: “I will be between them and an intruder.”

She said she is prepared to put her life on the line for students, but that it’s a terrifying prospect. She said she would like politicians to know: “I would like to not get shot at work.”

Ruby Perez, a 17-year-old student, said she came to show solidarity with the Parkland students: “We will fight so no kids have to go through this ... Our generation, we are not going to take it anymore. We are here to stand with them.”

“The big message is we need to stop hate and violence,” she added.

Maclaine Bamberger, 17, and Ruby Baden-Lasar, 17, said they go to a sheltered private school and wanted to be sure their community was engaged in the activism. “This is something that unites us on all fronts all over the world,” said Baden-Lasar. “It’s really about safety in schools, in the streets, in concerts, everywhere ... It’s uniting us all in a sad way.”

Bamberger said the march was just the start: “This is teaching our generation of kids to be empowered and speak up. We are seeing people our age being the most amazing activists ... It’s giving us hope.”
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Jaclyn Corin, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, just brought on stage Martin Luther King Jr’s granddaughter, Yolanda Renee King.

“I have a dream that enough is enough,” Yolanda said. “And that this should be a gun free world, period.”

She then asks the crowd to repeat back her words:

“Spread the word”
“Have you heard?”
“All across the nation”
“We are going to be a great generation.”


She lead the chant three times, encouraging the crowd to repeat her words “so the whole world can hear.”
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Webster
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(The Guardian) One of the most striking elements of the rally so far is how inclusive the speaker list has been, write Oliver Laughland and Jessica Reed in Washington...
--As well as the now famous faces from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, the speakers have included young victims of gun violence from around America.

Seventeen-year-old Edna Chavez, from Manual Arts High in Los Angeles entered the stage with a raised fist and spoke powerfully about losing her brother to gun violence when she was a young child. “I have learned to duck from bullets before I learned to read,” she told the crowd in Washington. She asked the crowd to repeat her brother’s name, leading to deafening chants of “Ricardo” on Pennsylvania Avenue.

She added: “Arming teachers will not work. More security in our schools does not work. Zero tolerance police do not work. They make us feel like criminals. We should feel supported & empowered in our schools.”

“La lucha sigue,” she said in Spanish - meaning the fight continues.

Trevon Bosley, a high school student from Chicago led the crowd in a chant: “Everyday shootings are everyday problems.”

The teenager lost his brother to gun violence and told the crowd: “I’m here to speak for those youth who fear they may be shot while going to the gas station, the movies, the bus stop, to church or even to and from school.”

He added: “I’m here to speak for those Chicago youth who feel their voices have been silenced for far too long. And I’m here to speak on behalf of everyone who believes a child getting shot and killed in Chicago or any other city is still a not-acceptable norm.”

Eleven-year-old Christopher Underwood has also just finished addressing the rally. Underwood is from Ocean Hill in Brooklyn. When Christopher was five he lost his brother in a shooting. He passed away on his 15th birthday.

Underwood said he lost his childhood to the shooting. “I would like to not worry about dying. But worry about math and play basketball with my friends.”

Underwood finished the speech by quoting from Martin Luther King Jnr, who he reminded the crowd was also a victim of gun violence.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Thousands gathered in Houston outside the office of senator Ted Cruz for the city’s March For Our Lives protest today.

Cruz received more money from gun rights groups than any other member of Congress in the 2016 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has repeatedly insisted gun control is not the solution to ending gun violence and supported arming teachers.
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--Echoes of “VOTE CRUZ OUT” in front of @tedcruz’s Houston office.

#MarchForOurLives
#MarchForOurLivesHouston
#NeverAgain
(PSR Houston, 24 March 2018)
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Ryan Deitsch, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas, is on stage challenging the notion we should arm teachers with guns. Instead, he says, teachers need to be armed with school supplies. And students need to be armed with facts and education.

He’s also challenged the notion that the school walk out protests have disrupted education. “We are done hiding,” Deitsch said. “We are done being full of fear. This is the beginning of the end. From here, we fight.”

He, like so many other people to take the stage today, is focusing on the midterm elections and voter registration. “Register, educate, vote.”

Student Alaya Eastman was in the third Marjory Stoneman Douglas class room to be attacked by the gunman.

She says she is at the rally to speak for her classmates, as well as people killed in urban communities well before this teenager-led movement to end gun violence.

“We need change, now,” she says. “All of our lives are important and all of our voices need to be heard.”

Alaya says her uncle died in an act of gun violence in Brooklyn, 15 years ago. She says yes, she is a Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, but also: “Before this, I was a regular black girl. And after this, I am still black and still regular.”
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