From Texas to Washington D.C., March For Our Lives rallies took place this past weekend. Thousands of protesters gathered on the Washington monument in D.C., and dozens of other places around the nation hoping to get Congress to act on stricter gun legislation.
March For Our Lives was formed in response to seventeen students who were killed in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fl., in 2018.
As it has happened countless times after a mass shooting, politicians, and media figures offered their thoughts and prayers. There was the usual push for gun control legislation, but no significant legislation was forthcoming. Right-wing media and the gun lobby cried foul, accusing the media and Democrats of politicizing that which is already a political issue, of attempting to take away the second amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners.
During his remarks at the Washington Monument Saturday, David Hogg said this:
“America is not as divided as Congress. The most divided people in this country are not in the fifty red, blue and purple states across the country, they are right here. They are the one hundred Senators on Capitol Hill. Because we do have Republicans with us. We do have gun owners with us. We all want change. Either they unite behind the changes we’re demanding or we will vote them out because all of us do agree, left and right, gun owners and non-gun owners, that we must take action to save lives now.
“All Americans have a right not to get shot, a right to safety. Nowhere in the Constitution is unrestricted access to weapons of war a guaranteed right. We’ve seen the damage that AR-15’s do, when we look at the innocent children of Uvalde. Tiny coffins filled with small mutilated and decapitated bodies. That should fill us with rage and demand for change – not endless debate, but demand for change now.
“If government can’t do anything to stop nineteen kids from being killed and slaughtered in their own school, and decapitated, it’s time to change who is in government. As we gather here today, the next shooter is already plotting his attack, while the federal government pretends it can’t do anything to stop it. Since the shooting in Texas, the Senate has done one thing: they have gone on recess.”
Since the Parkland massacre, there have been many mass shootings that failed to convince Congress to take some kind of action on gun legislation. There was the Top’s market in Buffalo, New York, and Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. While all have been shocking to the average American, still nothing was done, even after twenty children were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
However, even though this time the House has passed legislation as part of the Protecting Our Kids Act, it’s almost certain to die in the Senate.
Sources: Texas Tribune, CNN, NPR.
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