Students Lead Gun Control Movement in United States

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland (Florida) has ignited a students movement in the United States to protect children and for stricter gun control laws. On February 22, students across America- from Minnesota to Colorado to Arizona, walked out of their classes in protest against the shooting and demanding an end to the gun violence.

A few days back, remembering her friends who died in the school massacre in Florida, 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez in a powerful speech said that they all standing together and it’s the time for the change that we need to see. Arguing that guns have changed, but the gun control laws have not, Gonzalez, with tears in her eyes, said, “If the President wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I'm going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.”

“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS,” called Gonzalez to a crowd chanting -throw them [politicians] out.

On February 14, a 19-year-old former student, Nikolas Jacob Cruz, barged into the school and opened fire with his AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle killing 17 and injuring 14.

Meanwhile, in Texas school district, students were threatened with three days suspension if they walked out of their classes. The Needville Independent School District near Houston, Superintendent Curtis Rhodes warned, “Please be advised that the Needville ISD will not allow a student demonstration during school hours for any type of protest or awareness!!”

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre, one of the deadliest school shootings in the United States has put a renewed focus on the Second Amendment of the constitution and gun laws. While police have not yet ascertained the motive behind the killing or if Cruz was part of some right-wing Nazi group, details emerged that he was part of the US JRTOC. The JROTC is the United States military’s junior reserve officers training course is a congressionally mandated program that focuses on the youth-oriented mission and includes military training.

Junior RTOC had been in the centre of debate regarding the militarization of school children in the United States- and clearly, its JRTOC where Curz learned how to shoot. According to reports, the Stoneman Douglas JROTC program NRA’s (National Rifle Association) foundation donated $10,827 in non-cash assistance in 2016, when Cruz was on the squad.

Also, around 18 Florida schools received NRA Foundation funding in 2016.

Further data shows, that in their effort to propagate gun culture in the United States, the NRA Foundation has provided more than $335 million in grants since 1990 to various school, clubs and institutions.

The gun violence data shows that rarely a day passes by in the United States without gun shooting incidents- both accidental and premeditated. Everytown’s research notes that around 96 people are killed every day on an average. The gunviolencearchive.org reports that there had been already 34 mass shooting incidents in the United States in the year 2018.