Читать книгу We Make It Better - Eric Rosswood - Страница 14

On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2018, a teenager shot and killed seventeen people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It was one of the deadliest shootings in modern American history. The following day, the Guardian reported that there had been 1,624 mass shootings in the US in the 1,870 days prior. These senseless acts of violence had become commonplace in America, and little was done in response to them other than people offering their “thoughts and prayers” while waiting for the next one to occur. But this time was different. This time, the students relentlessly spoke up to push for gun safety laws, and one of those students was eighteen-year-old Emma González. Days after the shooting at her school, González gave a speech at a federal courthouse in which she put pressure on politicians and the NRA. Within moments, the speech went viral. Shortly after the rally, González and her classmates attended a town hall hosted by CNN, where they stood up to NRA spokesperson, Dana Loesch. González made such an impact at the event that her Twitter account quickly gained more followers than the official NRA account.

In less than a month after the shooting, the students pressured Florida politicians to take action, passing the “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.” The law raised the minimum age for buying a gun from eighteen to twenty-one, allocated money to mental health assistance in schools, established waiting periods and background checks, allowed for the arming of some teachers, banned bump stocks, and more. The students then went on to lead the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence, in which more than two million people participated in Washington, DC, and around the world.

González, who is openly bisexual and ran her school’s Gay-Straight Alliance for three years, continues to work with her fellow students to push for meaningful gun legislation in the States and to prevent the reelection of politicians who take money from the NRA.