Voices of March for Our Lives: Colorado high school student Maddie Provost

“For everyone who says it is not the guns, it is the people behind the trigger, I call B.S.”, Long said Saturday at Jackson’s version of the “March for Our Lives” rallies going on around the world.

“I mean, there’s a couple things, but one thing is if a 19-year-old couldn’t buy an AR-15 that would’ve had an impact on that event”, he replied. While it is true that the new budget bill “took no significant new steps on gun control”, it is not true that its only concessions were “some school safety measures and modest improvements to the background check system”. “The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest”.

David Berke, the parent of Alyssa Berke who now attends Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said that he thinks what makes this rally different than those prior is that people are fed up with the same endless narrative.

Freshman Class President Sam Schatmeyer agreed that gun violence is a national issue.

It was a rally that drew more than 800,000 people, according to organizers.

The professor was referring to the tendency of many news outlets to focus their reporting around the individuals who organized the protest – a group of teenagers who sat in a terrified silence as 17 of their classmates were senselessly murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14.

The normalcy of lockdowns paired with recurring news of shootings continue to remind many of past traumas and wounds that only time can heal suddenly resurface.

The Saturday march in Jackson provided a vignette of the new generation in MS and their hope for change.

They can organise as many marches and concerts and vigils as they like but none of it will alter the cold facts of this debate.

“After the tragedy at Parkland I was deeply saddened, I was in complete shock. We will make sure that the conversation we want to happen happens”, said panel discussion organizer and moderator, student Jonathan Trattner. The march, she said, was a reminder to the White House of the millions of students who will be eligible to vote not only in the next presidential election but in the midterms, too. “This is one of the next movements in our history and I want to be a part of it”, he said.

“We just want to show young people that democracy is not a spectator sport”.

The astounding presence of children, teens and young adults to represent a cause that very literally affects their lives in schools today was an fantastic sight.

“We have become numb to these school shootings”, he said.

“I feel like it’s kind of our responsibility to get the word out, because we are the current students and our lives are in jeopardy, ultimately”, Reilly said. Me and my friend Carter led a walkout at our elementary school on the 14th. We need to arm our teachers with paper, pens and the money they need to support themselves and their families, and the futures that sit in their classrooms. She was a junior when the Columbine shooting happened. We intend to see this movement to the very end – the end that involves voting undeserving politicians out of office and the gun reform we deeply desire.

At the rally, several speakers, including Erickson and retired teacher Judie Hackworth, called out specific legislators for blaming recent violence in schools on violent video games and other media instead of on guns. One day, she went home crying, thinking the drill was real and that a gunman was at school. “I don’t agree with our teachers being armed-that’s not their responsibility”. Today we march, we fight, we roar.