TEHRAN, March 18 -In the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school, students nationwide are organising for stricter gun laws.
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) -In the wake of the mass shooting at a Florida high school, students nationwide are organising for stricter gun laws.
Ariana Lopez spent over two hours huddled inside a storage closet with 60 other people.
Half stood, while the others sat on the floor of the closet, which measured no more than five square metres, as a gunman opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
"It was absolute fear," said 17-year-old Lopez as she recalled the deadly February 14 shooting.
"When the gunshots were going on, you could almost see it reverberating [on] the walls."
It's been just over a month since Nikolas Cruz, a former student at the school and the suspected attacker, admitted to carrying out the deadliest school shooting in modern US history.
Seventeen people were killed in the attack, including Helena Ramsay, one of Lopez's closest friends whom she had known since elementary school.
"She was one of those people you meet once in a lifetime that draws you to them and you want to spend as much time with them as possible before they leave," Lopez told Al Jazeera in a phone interview.
She said she only found out Ramsay had been killed around 3am on February 15, hours after the shooting had ended. Ramsay had shielded other students with her body and died instantly, Lopez said.
'A fair game'
As families and friends grapple with the death of their loved ones in the aftermath of the shooting, Parkland students and others have emerged as leaders of a nationwide movement calling for stricter gun control lawsin the US.
On March 14, thousands of students and teachers staged 17-minute walkouts, one minute for each victim in Florida, "to protest Congress' refusal to take action on the gun violence epidemic plaguing our schools and neighbourhoods."
Students have urged politicians to reign in the National Rifle Association (NRA), a pro-gun lobby group that has made millions of dollars in campaign contributions to members of the US Congress and Senate.
Their calls to boycott groups that do business with the NRA have led dozens of hotel chains, car rental companies and other businesses to cut ties with the powerful gun lobby.
Students in Wisconsin will begin a four-day, 80km march from the state capital of Madison to Janesville, the hometown of Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, on March 24 to call for changes to US gun laws.
"This is an issue that affects every kid around the US and we wanted to help make a change," said Katie Eder, a co-leader of the "50 More Miles" march and a senior at Shorewood High School.
She said the students are specifically calling out Ryan since as the Republican speaker of the House he has the power to back legislation that would end gun violence.
"He's really someone who has really refused to acknowledge what's going on," Eder told Al Jazeera.
"We're bringing it to his hometown to say; 'Paul Ryan, you can't continue to ignore us.' We care about this issue and we're going to continue to fight," she said.
Under pressure to take action, the Florida legislature recently passed stricter gun control laws, which raised the minimum age for buying a firearm from 18 to 21. The same legislation also allows teachers to be armed in schools, which was widely criticised.
The US Department of Justice has formally proposed a measure to ban bump stocks, an addition that turns semi-automatic into fully automatic, machine-gun type weapons, and similar bans are being considered in several US states.
Families have started to organise in the memory of their loved ones, as well.
Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son, Joaquin, was killed in the Parkland shooting, recently formed a new organisation called Change the Ref to empower youth across the US to have their voices heard.
Source:Aljazeera
Your Comment