March 24 Never Again Student Walkouts
By COLLIN BINKLEY
Associated Press
They bowed their heads in laurels of the dead. They carried signs with messages like "Never again" and "Am I next?" They railed against the National Burglarize Association and the politicians who support it.
And over and over, they repeated the message: Enough is plenty.
In a wave of protests ane historian chosen the largest of its kind in American history, tens of thousands of students walked out of their classrooms Wednesday to demand action on gun violence and schoolhouse safe.
The demonstrations extended from Maine to Hawaii as students joined the youth-led surge of activism set off by the February. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
"We're sick of it," said Maxwell Nardi, a senior at Douglas Southward. Freeman High Schoolhouse in Henrico, Virginia, but outside Richmond. "We're going to go along fighting, and we're non going to end until Congress finally makes resolute changes."
LOS ANGELES: With calls for 'enough,' thousands participate in student walkouts in LA to protest gun violence
Orange County: Orange County schools bring together student walkouts to protest gun violence
SOUTH BAY: South Bay, Harbor Expanse students walk out, vow 'No more silence, end gun violence!'
LONG BEACH: Long Beach students protest, demand gun control, in national walkout over Florida shooting
INLAND EMPIRE: Inland high schools stage pupil walkouts to protestation gun violence
PASADENA: They may be younger, but the students at Pasadena's McKinley school were a role of national schoolhouse walkout
SAN GABRIEL VALLEY: The call to protest guns, participate in school walkout was strong for Schurr High students in Montebello
FONTANA: Pinnacle Loftier School students in Fontana join National Schoolhouse Walkout to protest gun violence
REDLANDS: Pupil walkouts in Redlands promote school safety, memorialize victims of gun violence
Students around the nation left class at x a.m. local time for at least 17 minutes — one infinitesimal for each of the dead in the Florida shooting. Some led marches or rallied on football fields, while others gathered in schoolhouse gyms or took a knee joint in the hallway.
At some schools, hundreds of students poured out. At others, just i or two walked out in disobedience of administrators.
They lamented that also many young people accept died and that they're tired of going to school afraid they will be killed.
"Enough is enough. People are done with existence shot," said Iris Fosse-Ober, eighteen, a senior at Washburn High School in Minneapolis.
In joining the protests, the students followed the case fix past many of the survivors of the Florida shooting, who have become gun-command activists, leading rallies, lobbying legislators and giving TV interviews. Their efforts helped spur passage terminal week of a Florida constabulary curbing access to assault rifles by young people.
Another protest against gun violence is scheduled in Washington on March 24, with organizers saying it is expected to draw hundreds of thousands.
But whether the students can brand a difference on Capitol Hill remains to exist seen.
Some students have issued specific demands for lawmakers, including mandatory background checks for all gun sales and a ban on assail weapons similar the ane used in the Florida bloodbath.
While administrators and teachers at some schools applauded students for taking a stand — and some joined them — others threatened punishment for missing course.
As the demonstrations unfolded, the NRA responded by posting a photo on Twitter of a black rifle emblazoned with an American flag. The caption: "I'll control my own guns, thank you."
The protests took place at schools from the unproblematic level through college, including some that take witnessed their own mass shootings: Nearly 300 students gathered on a soccer field at Colorado's Columbine High, while students who survived the Sandy Hook Simple School assault in 2012 marched out of Newtown High School in Connecticut.
In the nation's capital letter, more than 2,000 high-schoolhouse age protesters observed 17 minutes of silence while sitting on the ground with their backs turned to the White House. President Donald Trump was out of town.
The students carried signs with messages such as "Our Blood/Your Hands" and "Never Again" and chanted slogans against the NRA.
In New York City, they chanted, "Enough is enough!" In Common salt Lake City, the signs read, "Protect kids non guns," "Fear has no place in school" and "Am I adjacent?"
At Eagle Stone High in Los Angeles, teenagers took a moment of silence equally they gathered around a circle of 17 chairs labeled with the names of the Florida victims.
Stoneman Douglas Loftier senior David Hogg, who has emerged as ane of the leading student activists, livestreamed the walkout at the tragedy-stricken schoolhouse on his YouTube channel. He said students couldn't be expected to stay in class while there was work to practice to prevent gun violence.
"Every one of these individuals could have died that twenty-four hour period. I could have died that day," he said.
Congress has shown little inclination to defy the powerful NRA and tighten gun laws, and Trump backed abroad from his initial support for raising the minimum age for buying an assail rifle to 21.
A spokeswoman for Education Secretarial assistant Betsy DeVos, newly appointed head of a federal console on school safety, said DeVos "gives a lot credit to the students who are raising their voices and demanding change," and "their input will be valuable."
David Farber, a history professor at the Academy of Kansas who has studied social change movements, said it is also soon to know what effect the protests will take. Just he said Wed's walkouts were without a doubt the largest protestation led past high school students in the history of the U.S.
"Young people are that social media generation, and information technology's easy to mobilize them in a way that it probably hadn't been fifty-fifty 10 years ago," Farber said.
Wednesday'southward coordinated protests were loosely organized past Empower, the youth wing of the Women's March, which brought thousands to Washington terminal year. The group appear the time and focus on social media, and provided a space where any school'southward students could announce their plans.
At Aztec Loftier Schoolhouse in a rural, gun-friendly function of New Mexico where many bask hunting and shooting, students avoided gun politics and opted for a ceremony honoring students killed in shootings — including two who died in a December attack at Aztec.
"Our kids sit down on both ends of the spectrum, and we have a diverse community when information technology comes to gun rights and gun control," Chief Warman Hall said.
In Brimfield, Ohio, 12-twelvemonth-onetime Olivia Shane, an avid competitive trap shooter who has endemic her own guns since she was about 7, skipped the gun protest and memorial held at her school.
"People want to accept away our guns and information technology's a Second Subpoena right of ours," she said. "If they desire to have away our Second Subpoena right, why can't nosotros take away their amendment of freedom of spoken language?"
Well-nigh x students left Ohio'south West Liberty-Salem High School — which witnessed a shooting last yr — despite a alert they could confront detention or more than serious subject area.
Police in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta patrolled Kell Loftier, where students were threatened with unspecified consequences if they participated. Three students walked out anyway.
The walkouts drew support from companies such as media conglomerate Viacom, which paused programming on MTV, BET, Nickelodeon and its other networks for 17 minutes during the walkouts.
___
Associated Printing writers Ken Thomas and Maria Danilova in Washington; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Drew in Chapel Hill, Due north Carolina; Mike Householder in Detroit; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston; Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Krysta Fauria in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Source: https://www.whittierdailynews.com/2018/03/15/adults-its-your-move-students-say-after-historic-walkouts/
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