March for Our Lives, Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON — In a historic groundswell of youth activism, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters rallied across the U.S. against gun violence Saturday, vowing to transform fear and grief into a “vote-them-out” movement and tougher laws against weapons and ammo.
They took to the streets of the nation’s capital and such cities as Boston, New York, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Oakland, California, in the kind of numbers seen during the Vietnam era, sweeping up activists long frustrated by stalemate in the gun debate and bringing in lots of new, young voices.
They were called to action by a brand-new corps of leaders: student survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead Feb. 14.
“If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking,” Parkland survivor David Hogg said to roars from the protesters packing Pennsylvania Avenue from the stage near the Capitol many blocks back toward the White House. “We’re going to take this to every election, to every […]
We need to do something about the guns, and we also need to do something about the psychiatric meds that put people into lethal states of mind. Teaching people to fight back would help.
I have found through experience that using peaceful methods accomplishes much more than fighting back, Sam.
This movement is twisting and conflating issues. Gun control is not about guns, it is about control. Trying to stop guns does not stop violence. Violence is the underlying symptom of deeper problems..including mental health and the manner in which our society operates. Each time you give away your rights in the name of security…you give up both – paraphrasing Ben Franklin. This is a fact. Shallow 1960’s retread of social justice crybaby protesting is not going to help a youth turn his life around, provide ways for individuals families or groups to resolve conflicts peacefully, allow everyone’s voice to be heard in community, etc. We need to deal with the root of our problems directly and change the way we live at the community level. Politics, protest and begging for your rights to be taken away are ineffective.