Vallejo youth plea for action, not more gun violence in ‘March for Our Lives’
By Richard Freedman, 03/24/18
Around 400 people of all ages walked up Mare Island Way to Vallejo City Hall on Saturday afternoon for the ‘March for Our Lives.’ Participants called for a change in gun laws and a stop to politicians taking NRA money. RICH FREEDMAN — TIMES-HERALD
Yes, Sgt. Brent Garrick was armed. It’s required of the job. But in providing a “police presence” at Saturday’s “March for Our Lives” in Vallejo, the officer may as well have been packing a feather duster.
All the speakers at Saturday’s ‘March for Our Lives’ at the steps of City Hall were young people, with elected officials taking a back seat as listeners. RICH FREEDMAN — TIMES-HERALD
“This is very inspiring. There’s been no trouble at all,” Garrick said, surveying about 400 who finished the half-mile march. “Young adults seem to be so much more intelligent than my generation was. They’re aware of community, social events and things that affect us all.”
That, obviously, includes gun violence, with most of the young speakers in front of City Hall impacted directly or indirectly by guns.
While many of the nearly 850 cities involved nationwide in “March for Our Lives” offering elected officials as speakers, this was young-people-only at the microphone. And that was fine with Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan.
“This is outstanding,” Sampayan said of the turnout. “These people are the voices of not only our future but our present. I’m nothing but impressed.”
The day’s message, added the mayor, “is that people of this country are tired of violence. We need to come together as people and human beings to show we care for each other. This violence has to stop.”
The march began as the participants gathered just inside Harbor Way, with free beverages, protein bars and T-shirts distributed before the 1:30 p.m. start.
Mike Brown, walking solo, was happy to join the masses.
“It’s a powerful movement right now that I haven’t seen for a long, long time,” said the 63-year-old Brown. “I want to see it grow and I want to see the changes come. I couldn’t be more proud of these kids who are standing up and doing it.”
Brown hoped the march generated “some serious changes in the laws. There’s no reason for assault weapons.”
Barbara Gaea, a 24-year Vallejoan, said people “are so weary” of the gun violence.
“I think the outrage level is reaching the tipping point,” Gaea said “People can’t take the insanity any more. We don’t need weapons of mass destruction.”
Wisconsin-born Vallejoan Craig Gaines said he hopes action is taken soon because “kids need to be safe at school. There needs to be some control and deeper, stronger understanding of holding accountable those who we are going to issue guns to. We need to be more cautionary.”
Gaines said he hopes the national impact of the walk “wakes everyone up and lets everyone realize that our children are crying out. If you can’t go to school and be safe, where can you go other than being at home?”
While the youth takes over the reigns of the anti-gun violence movement, “we should support them,” Gaines said. “These are our leaders of the future.”
A long-time Vallejoan, Carlo Carlucci, 70, said he was compelled to march because of “anger and grief, losing our children on behalf of the egos of stupid people.”
Carlucci added that he’s grateful that “we have a new generation that is determined to lead us.”
At City Hall, the young people gave brief but passionate speeches, pleading for change.
“We need to take action and we need to save the ones we love,” said Isaiah Nickelberry, a John Finney High School student.
“We are all fighting for the same cause so our kids and our kids’ kids will have a better future,” Nickelberry said.
Bethel High Student Jenny Lee lamented “all the innocent lives lost” in Parkland and all the victims “who were the same age as me.”
“All our voices should be heard,” offered Arnaz Hall, another Bethel student, saddened that every day at school, “I have to think, ‘Am I going to make it home?’”
“Our president should stop worrying about immigrants trying to cross the border when there’s Americans killing each other,” added Hall.
An American Canyon High School student, “Natalie,” mourned the loss of her cousin, Eric Reyes, shot and killed in 2016 and namesake of the Eric Reyes Foundation.
“A life taken by teenagers who had guns who took a big part of me away,” Natalie said. “I miss him. I miss his smile. Someone took an innocent person’s life. I’ve had enough of this. We have seen enough senseless gun violence. We need action now, not later.”
“We don’t want to grow up in a world where every person can say they’ve lost someone to gun violence,” said Valentina Quintana, 17, believing “the government values money over the lives of people. Mass shooting after mass shooting. Why must we wait? I say we don’t. We must vote out those who accept money from the NRA, vote out those who blame mental health for gun violence but don’t provide any services or options for those who are mentally ill. We’re the new generation and we cannot allow this to continue.”
“None of us should be afraid of sending our children to a place they should feel safe,” said Juwanna Smith of the Sisterhood of Mothers.
Charnette Briggs, 22, added a musical break to the speeches, singing the 1965 hit, “What the World Needs Now is Love.”
“I chose it because there’s so much hate in the world,” Briggs said. “I was taught that we’re better together than apart. Love is a big factor.”
Initial looking at the crowd “was a little nerve-wracking,” said Briggs. “But it feels great. I hope the president takes this (the nationwide marches) seriously. No more lives need to be sacrificed, no more lives need to be killed.”
March for Our Lives Highlights: Students Protesting Guns Say ‘Enough Is Enough’
By TIM CHAFFEE, March 24, 2018.
Demonstrators flooded streets across the globe in public protests on Saturday, calling for action against gun violence. Hundreds of thousands of marchers turned out, in the most ambitious show of force yet from a student-driven movement that emerged after the recent massacre at a South Florida high school.
At the main event in Washington, survivors of mass shootings, including the one in Florida, rallied a whooping crowd — “Welcome to the revolution,” said one of the student organizers — and spoke of communities that are disproportionately affected by gun violence. “It is normal to see flowers honoring the lives of black and brown youth that have lost their lives to a bullet,” Edna Chavez, 17, said of her South Los Angeles neighborhood.
• In New York, marchers bundled in bright orange — the official color of a gun control advocacy group — charged toward Central Park. And in Parkland, Fla., less than a mile from where the shooting took place last month, one protester’s eyes brimmed with tears, surrounded by the echoing chant, “Enough is enough!”
• Small groups of counterprotesters supporting gun rights also marched in different cities. In Salt Lake City, demonstrators carried pistols and flags. One of their signs read: “What can we do to stop mass shootings? SHOOT BACK.” In Boston, opposing groups of protesters shouted at one another before the police intervened.
• More than 800 protests were planned in every American state, including in some gun-friendly cities, and on every continent except for Antarctica, according to a website set up by organizers. Check out photos from around the world.
• Planning for the events was spearheaded by a group of students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who have emerged as national anti-gun figures in the wake of the shooting that left 17 dead.
• Sharp-tongued and defiant, the student leaders hoped to elevate gun control as a key issue during the upcoming midterm elections, and to inspire their peers to register to vote en masse.
• They were building on the success of a national school walkout this month, and gun control legislation in Florida that they helped to usher in. Their goal remains, as articulated online in the event’s mission statement, to “demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be immediately brought before Congress to address these gun issues.”
• The White House responded to the demonstrations in a statement. “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” it read. On Friday, the Justice Department proposed banning so-called bump stocks, but President Trump signed a spending bill that included only some background check and school safety measures.
• The Times had journalists covering the marches in Washington; New York; Boston; Montpelier, Vt.; Parkland, Fla; Dahlonega, Ga.; Chicago; Salt Lake City; Los Angeles; Seattle; Anchorage, Alaska; Rome; Berlin; and Tokyo. Follow them on Twitter.
Participants in New York City walking through Columbus Circle on Saturday. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times
The student organizers want action in a midterm year.
The student activists emphasized that they would soon have access to the ballot box as they hope to build support for candidates who support universal background checks and bans on assault-style weapons.
Large majorities of Americans say they support gun control measures like universal background checks. Yet when put directly to the people in a referendum in recent years, the results have been mixed. Here is a look at what polling and recent referendums reveal about the political challenges that face the student-led activists.
At street intersections in Washington on Saturday, voter registration volunteers waved clipboards over their heads, shouting, “It takes less than three minutes!” They wore neon yellow shirts that read, “Register to vote!”
“These Parkland students have already been able to make change that no one else could for decades,” said Carol Williams, a volunteer from West Chester, Pa.
In Parkland on Saturday, Sari Kaufman, a Stoneman Douglas sophomore, urged people to “turn this moment into a movement” that would push out of office any politician who took money from the National Rifle Association.
“They think we’re all talk and no action,” she said to loud applause and cheers, and urged the crowd to prove politicians wrong by voting in huge numbers.
“Remember that policy change is not nearly as difficult as losing a loved one,” she said. “Don’t just go out and vote: Get 17 other people to go out and vote.”
The crowd was particularly rousing in its appreciation of Casey Sherman, 17, a Douglas student and one of the Parkland rally organizers.
“My love for Parkland had taken on a whole new meaning,” she said. “After all this heartbreak, we have come back stronger than ever. Those 17 people did not die in vain. We will stop at nothing until we make real, lasting change.”
Jada Wright, 17, a student at Eastern Senior High School cries during the March for Our Lives rally in Washington on Saturday. Credit Erin Schaff for The New York Times
‘Welcome to the revolution,’ one of the student organizers said in Washington.
At the rally in Washington, the first speaker was Cameron Kasky, 17, a junior at Stoneman Douglas who last month challenged Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican, to stop accepting donations from the National Rifle Association. Mr. Kasky called for universal background checks on gun sales and a ban on assault rifles.
“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down and stay silent: Wait your turn,” Mr. Kasky said. “Welcome to the revolution.”
Another speaker, Edna Chavez, 17, a high school senior in Los Angeles, said she had lost her brother to gun violence. “Ricardo was his name. Can you all say it with me?” she asked.
The crowd said his name over and over again, as Ms. Chavez smiled through tears.
Alex Wind, 17, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, spoke about the need for legislative change.
“To all the politicians out there, if you take money from the N.R.A., you have chosen death,” he said. “If you have not expressed to your constituents a public stance on this issue, you have chosen death. If you do not stand with us by saying we need to pass common sense gun legislation, you have chosen death. And none of the millions of people marching in this country today will stop until they see those against us out of office, because we choose life.”
David Hogg, 17, a senior at the high school and one of the most recognizable faces of the movement, said: “Who here is going to vote in the 2018 election? If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking.”
On Saturday, officials with Metro, the region’s subway system, said more than 207,000 rides had been taken on the system by 1 p.m., about half of the number by that time during the women’s march.
A team of crowd science researchers led by the professor G. Keith Still of Manchester Metropolitan University in England estimated that about 180,000 people attended Saturday’s rally in Washington. They examined photographs, video and satellite imagery of the rally to estimate the crowd density in different areas of the demonstration. The number is less than half of the 470,000 that Mr. Still estimated had attended the women’s march in Washington in 2017.
Emma González, one of the student organizers, stood for several minutes of silence
Ms. González spoke for just under two minutes on Saturday at the rally in Washington, describing the effects of gun violence in emotional detail and reciting the names of classmates who had been killed.
Then she said nothing for four minutes and 26 seconds.
She stared straight ahead during her period of silence onstage, her sometimes watery eyes fixed in the distance. Then a timer went off.
“Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and 20 seconds,” she said. “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.
“Fight for your lives, before it’s someone else’s job,” she continued, and then walked offstage.
The March for Our Lives in New York City on Saturday. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times
In New York, 150,000 people were marching, the mayor said.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said early in the afternoon on Twitter that an estimated 150,000 people were marching. “You have to know when a revolution is starting,” he said.
The musician Paul McCartney, speaking to CNN at the march, opened his jacket to show a T-shirt that read “We can end gun violence.”
“This is what we can do, so I’m here to do it,” Mr. McCartney said. “One of my best friends was killed in gun violence right around here, so it’s important to me,” he added, referring to his Beatles bandmate John Lennon, who was shot and killed in December 1980 outside his apartment on the Upper West Side.
As the crowd thickened before a rally in front of the Trump International Hotel and Tower near Columbus Circle, Mary Ann Jacobs, 55, of Sandy Hook, Conn., milled in the crowd with her husband.
Ms. Jacobs was a library clerk during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She barricaded herself in the school’s library, “in a closet hidden behind file cabinets” along with 18 fourth graders.
“In the months after the shooting it took 100 percent of my personal focus to get up and go to work every day to take care of my surviving students,” she said.
Demonstrators at a gun rights rally in Salt Lake City on Saturday. It was one of several such counterdemonstrations across the country as hundreds of thousands marched in support of gun control. Credit Kim Raff for The New York Times
Opponents of gun control staged their own smaller rallies in Boston and Salt Lake City.
Tensions over guns seemed to converge in Salt Lake City, where a gun rights march kicked off just minutes before a gun control march.
The gun rights rally drew hundreds of people, many carrying signs — “AR-15s EMPOWER the people,” one said.
Brandon McKee was one of the many people with pistols on their hips. His daughter Kendall, 11, held a sign: “Criminals love gun control.”
Mr. McKee said of the Washington marchers: “I believe it’s their goal to unarm America, and that’s why we’re here today. We’re not going to stand idly by and let them tell us what we can and cannot do.”
As the gun rights advocates set off toward the Capitol, some began to heckle a gun control advocate, Linda Peer, 67, who had infiltrated the march line.
“She’s not a true American!” one man yelled. “Shame on you!” the group chanted at her.
In Boston, a clutch of Second Amendment supporters gathered in front of the Statehouse with signs that said, “Come and take it.”
“We believe in the Second Amendment,” said Paul Allen, 62, a retired construction worker who lives in Salisbury, Mass. “You people will interpret it the way you want and we’ll interpret it for what it is — that law-abiding citizens who are true patriots have the right to bear arms.”
Mr. Allen described supporters of gun control as “ignorant sheep who are being spoon-fed by liberal teachers.”
“They haven’t read the Constitution and they don’t know what it means,” he said.
Gun rights organizations were mostly quiet about the demonstrations on Saturday. A spokesman for the N.R.A. did not answer several emails requesting comment.
On the eve of the march, Colion Noir, a host on NRATV, an online video channel produced by the gun group, lashed out at the Parkland students, saying that “no one would know your names” if someone with a weapon had stopped the gunman at their school.
“These kids ought to be marching against their own hypocritical belief structures,” he said in the video, adding, “The only reason we’ve ever heard of them is because the guns didn’t come soon enough.”
Demonstrators gathered in gun-friendly states.
In places where gun control is less popular, demonstrators pooled together, trying to show that support for their cause extends beyond large, predominantly liberal cities.
In Vermont, a rural state with a rich hunting culture and some of the nation’s weakest gun laws, marchers gathered at the Capitol in Montpelier. Organizers hoped that thousands would turn out by the end of the day — an ambitious goal in a city of 7,500 people.
“I hope the national march is going to be impactful, but at least we know state by state that we can make change,” said Madison Knoop, a college freshman who organized the rally.
In Dahlonega, Ga., several hundred people gathered outside a museum, a surprising show of strength for gun control in an overwhelmingly conservative region.
“We’re going to be the generation that takes down the gun lobby,” Marisa Pyle, 20, said through a megaphone.
Ms. Pyle, a student at the University of Georgia and an organizer of Saturday’s rally in Lumpkin County, challenged critics of the demonstrations across the country.
“I’m starting to think they just want to shut us up because they’re scared of what we have to say,” Ms. Pyle said.
Young people were scattered in a crowd dominated by people in middle age and older. There were few signs of counterprotesters. But as Ms. Pyle led a roll call of the Stoneman Douglas victims, a man in a passing vehicle yelled: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Elsa Hoppenworth, a 16-year-old junior at West Anchorage High School, in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday. Credit Ash Adams for The New York Times
In Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, marchers gathered in weather that peaked above freezing around noon.
Alaska has not seen a school shooting in two decades, but it has the highest rates of both gun-related deaths and suicides in the nation.
High schoolers turned out in jean jackets and hoodies, and shoveled snow to clear paths for one another in the 24-degree weather.
“Do you know how it feels to have the principal pretend over the intercom that the shooter is walking your way?” Elsa Hoppenworth, a 16-year-old junior at West Anchorage High School, asked a cheering crowd. “Those who do not contribute to change contribute to our death.”
Melanie Anderson, a 44-year-old middle school teacher, held up a sign that said “teacher, not sharp shooter.”
Keenly aware that Alaska is a pro-gun state, the students who marched and made speeches were careful to make clear that they were seeking modest reinforcements on existing gun laws, rather than all-out bans.
The message resonated for Chicago residents all too familiar with gun violence.
Thousands of demonstrators came together at Chicago’s Union Park, where speaker after speaker rattled off grim statistics about the city’s endemic violence.
“Chicago has been plagued with gun violence way before the Parkland shooting,” said Juan Reyes, a high school student. “Suddenly, people are talking about students not feeling safe in schools. But in reality, students in our city’s South and West Sides have never felt safe.”
Speaking at the rally in Washington, Trevon Bosley, a 19-year-old Chicago resident whose older brother Terrell died of a gunshot wound in 2006, said, “We deserve the right to have a life without fear of being gunned down.”
Mya Middleton, 16, also traveled to speak in Washington, where she recalled an encounter with an armed man who was stealing from a store when she was a high school freshman.
“He pulls out this silver pistol and points it in my face and said these words that to this day haunt me and give me nightmares. He said, ‘If you say anything, I will find you.’ And yet I’m still saying something today,” she said, to loud cheers.
Protesters in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday. Credit Danny Casey/EPA, via Shutterstock
Americans in Tokyo, Rome, Madrid and Berlin showed support.
On Saturday in Tokyo, where guns are highly restricted and shootings are rare, dozens of protesters gathered with signs bearing the names of people who have been killed by gun violence. Participants, many of them American, took turns reading poems or sharing memories of family members or friends killed in shootings.
“I think it is important not just to call for changes to our gun laws, not just to debate the subtleties of the Second Amendment, but to remember that it is people who have died because of our gun laws,” said Linda Gould, an American in Japan who organized the vigil.
And in Nagoya, Japan, Mieko Hattori, the mother of Yoshihiro Hattori, a Japanese exchange student who was shot and killed in Baton Rouge, La., in the early 1990s, said earlier in the week, “I just wanted to convey our message: We support you from Japan.”
In Rome on Saturday, demonstrators at the American Embassy chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, the N.R.A. has got to go” and waved signs that read, “A Gun Is Not Fun” and “Am I Next?” The speakers at the rally included local students as well as Valentina and Gabriela Zuniga, a freshman and junior at Stoneman Douglas, who were on spring break.
“We knew there were rallies all over the world, and we looked for one in Rome,” said Gabriela, 16, adding that her life had changed drastically since the shooting. “You go into class and see empty desks. It’s different for everyone now.”
Near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, 150 to 200 people, most of them Americans, held signs saying “bullets aren’t school supplies” and “Waffeln statt Waffen” (Waffles Instead of Weapons).
Dylan von Felbert, 16, an 11th grader at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, said, “Our generation can be very apathetic — myself included — so I think it’s important to support those things you really believe in.”
In Madrid, a small crowd — almost all of them Americans — braved a cold Saturday to gather in front of the American embassy. An American student read out a list of all the American school shootings since the Columbine massacre.
Fiona Maharg Bravo attended with her 13-year-old daughter, Elena. Ms. Maharg Bravo grew up in Chicago but has lived in Madrid for more than 10 years.
“It’s perhaps hard for people here to relate to what unfortunately is a uniquely American issue,” she said.
Reporting was contributed by Annie Correal, Caitlin Dickerson, Jacey Fortin, Jonathan Wolfe and Louis Lucero II from New York; Emily Baumgaertner, Emily Cochrane, Patricia Mazzei, Sabrina Tavernise and Michael D. Shear from Washington; Nick Madigan from Parkland, Fla.; Julie Turkewitz from Salt Lake City and Denver; Mitch Smith from Chicago; Katharine Q. Seelye from Boston; Jess Bidgood from Montpelier, Vt.; Alan Blinder from Dahlonega, Ga.; Jose A. Del Real from Los Angeles; Jill Burke from Anchorage, Alaska; Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome; Christopher Schuetze from Berlin; Raphael Minder from Madrid; and Hisako Ueno from Tokyo.
If the violence problem is due to mental health issues, the future is bleak.
By Glenn Geher Ph.D., Darwin’s Subterranean World, Feb 15, 2018
Is anyone else just emotionally exhausted from dealing with mass shootings in our nation? What happened yesterday, when a young man killed 17 at a high school in Parkland, Florida, is starting to seem like a typical news story. To my mind, it is unbelievable how normative this kind of incident is becoming.
In a tweet speaking to this horror, Donald Trump said this:
“So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!”
So the president seems to be primarily placing blame on the fact that the killer was “mentally disturbed.” The president does not mention gun control or much else in his preliminary statement on this incident.
As a professional behavioral scientist, I am disappointed by such a simple characterization of such a significant issue. As I have written about in detail before, nearly all human behaviors are the result of multiple factors (see: Multi-Factorial Causation and the Orlando Shootings). To say that mental instability is the only factor responsible for what happened yesterday in Parkland, Florida is an excessive oversimplification. As is the case with all of the mass shootings we are seeing in our nation these days, there are multiple causes at work.
Let’s Assume for a Second that the Mental Health Issue Is the Primary Issue
For a second, for argument’s sake, let’s think about the implications of the it is a mental health issue perspective on mass shootings. From where I stand, if this were the case, this would be enormously unsettling for various reasons.
Largely, this would be concerning because mental health problems have pretty much been skyrocketing in our nation across the past few decades (see Twenge, 2015). In fact, in a powerful Psychology Today post from 2015, my colleague Jean Twenge provides a mountain of data speaking to the facts that (a) a broad array of psychological disorders, including depressionand anxiety, have increased in frequency since the 1980s and (b) this observed pattern is not exclusively the result of over-diagnosis. In short, our nation is getting less and less mentally healthy with time. And yes, this is a problem.
While this pattern is problematic for many reasons, I’d like you to join me in thinking about the implications regarding the future of senseless violence in this country. A simple assessment of this situation is pretty grave. If mass shootings are the result of mental health problems, and if mental health problems are on the rise, then we can only expect the trend in such events as mass shootings to increase. Think about that.
What Can We Do About It?
To my mind, this constellation of facts is truly grim and gives me great concern regarding our future. Of course, action is ultimately what is needed here. And in a democracy like ours, action often takes the form of embracing the First Amendment and by engaging in the electoral process. We can do things such as writing letters to elected officials, writing letters to the local newspaper, meeting with elected officials and holding them to task, electing officials into office who have a record of taking action on the issues at hand to make a positive difference, and even running for office.
If the problem is all about increases in psychological disorders in our nation, then we need to support programs in the fields of psychology and mental health. And we need to particularly support programs that have been demonstrated, through rigorous empirical research, to actually work. And we need to support our colleges and universities with teams of researchers who are studying this topic with the most cutting-edge scientific methods.
However, given the fact that each mass shooting is likely caused by a broad array of factors, then if we are really serious about increasing the safety of our nation, we need to address each of these factors.
A great deal of research has shown a connection(link is external) between the unique gun laws in the U.S. and the excessively high rate of mass shootings in our nation. The connection is beyond what would be expected by chance. And, in statistical terminology, the effect size is enormous. So while it seems likely that the guy in Florida was mentally unstable, it is also clear that he legally purchased extremely dangerous firearms that ended up being used in the incident. There are at least two foundational causes as to why this event occurred. If we really care about our future, then we need to address both of these issues.
Bottom Line
When I hear about another case of needless violence and carnage, I get upset. I have always liked to believe that the U.S. is a great nation. It’s hard to see things that way when there’s a mass shooting nearly every day in this country and it seems that our hands are tied as to how to deal with it.
One cause of this problem that is often cited pertains to mental health problems. Sure, a lot of these killers have histories of being mentally unstable. But mental health problems are on the rise in this country. So if we really think that the issue of mental health is the primary issue at hand here, then we are in big trouble moving forward. Just saying “be vigilant” is not going to solve the problem.
Further, a landslide of evidence has shown that the unique gun culture and gun laws in the U.S. are very strongly connected with the high level of mass shootings in our nation. It seems, then, given all of these factors taken together, that substantially modified gun laws at this time in our history, while mental health issues are on the increase, would be a good idea. For our shared future.
References
Twenge, J. M. (2015). Time period and birth cohort differences in depressive symptoms in the U.S., 1982-2013. Social Indicators Research, 121, 437-454.
Benicia High students rally on campus for gun control
MARCH 14, 2018 BY GEORGE JOHNSTON
In lieu of a walkout, Benicia High students organized a rally in the quad during Access Period to pay tribute to the victims of school shootings and call for stricter gun control measures. (Photo by George Johnston)
Unlike at the thousands of schools across the country, zero students walked out of Benicia High School during the National School Walkout. Instead, students held a rally in the quad during Access Period to give speeches on preventing future gun violence and improving their school.
Senior Carson Rendell began the rally with a moment of silence for the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland Fla. on Feb. 14 He then delivered the first speech of day, focusing on the many victims of school shootings and how easily he believed gun violence could be prevented with stricter gun control laws like stronger background checks and bans on assault weapons.
“When will we realize this is a problem?” Rendell asked. “When will we take a step back and look at the fact that in this country there are 300 million people here, and there are over 300 million people with guns? That in states like Florida, 18-year-olds do not have to go through a background check to buy an assault rifle and and on average 96 people are killed each day by guns?”
Kaitlyn Tang gave the second speech, calling for her fellow students to take action so that young people would not have to fear attending school. Joseph Perez read from a poem he had written, titled “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Politician.”
Lisa St. Pierre and Lulu Wilson delivered a joint speech, saying America was on the catalyst of change and that the current generation will not rest until this change has
happened. The duo also called for more support of mental illness and health care, and criticized arming teachers.
“We have the right to come to school without being shot,” St. Pierre and Wilson said. “We shouldn’t come to school with the fear of death every time we hear the fire alarm and hear someone speak on the loudspeaker or even when someone opens our classroom door. This is not a matter of right and left. This is a matter of life and death.”
Shannon Sweeney, the senior class president, laid out the legislative rules of the Never Again movement: banning assault rifles, expanding background checks, passing gun violence restraining laws and stopping the militarization of police. She then made a call for civic engagement.
“We can make a change,” Sweeney said. “In 2012 in the general election, only 38 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted. We need to bring this change to the ballot box. We must demand it from our legislators. We are the future voters. We will not accept their complacency or corruption, and if it continues we will replace them.”
Upon completion of Access Period, students returned to class.
However, one Benicia Unified School District student did walk out: at Matthew Turner Elementary School. Earlier in the morning, Emma Willeford’s mother explained, without going into much detail, why people were protesting and asked Emma if she would be interested in joining the national movement. According to her mother, Emma thought it over and agreed to walk out of school.
Around 10 a.m. Emma was picked up by her mother and met outside by her stepsister, who was a holding a protest sign. For 17 minutes, Emma Willeford waited outside as a part of the walkout. When the 17 minutes were completed, Mrs. Willeford signed Emma back into school. Emma’s teachers were understanding of her choice, according to Mrs. Willeford.
Mrs. Willeford said she was very proud of Emma.
Benicia will next be participating in the March for Our Lives 10 a.m. Saturday, March 24 at the foot of First Street.
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