Teens across the country are staging walkouts, “lie-ins,” and marches in protest over the lack of gun control efforts in the wake of Florida’s deadly school shooting on Feb. 14.
Students from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School announced plans for a national walkout and a “March For Our Lives” demonstration in Washington, D.C. Last week’s shooting left 17 dead at the hands of 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student with a troubled mental history. More than a hundred students also plan to lie down in front of the White House on Monday as a form of protest for stronger gun laws, FOX 5 reported.
“I felt like it was our time to take a stand,” said Lane Murdock, 15, told Standard Media. “We’re the ones in these schools, we’re the ones who are having shooters come into our classrooms and our spaces.”
Whitney Bowen and Eleanor Nuechterlein, two Washington students who organized Monday’s “lie-in,” claim politicians have been too slow in reacting to mass shootings.
“We’re the ones who hear a book drop and we think, ‘Is there shooter on our campus?'” said Bowen. “And that’s not the way that it should be in a classroom. A classroom is where we should go to learn and to feel safe. We want to send the message overall else is that something needs to be done.”
RELATED: JROTC Students Save Lives In Florida Shooting
The March For Our Lives event is planned for March 24, and Murdock gathered more than 50,000 signatures Sunday for a national high school walkout on April 20. The “lie-in” is scheduled for 12:00-12:30 p.m. Monday.
Student organizer Cameron Kasky claims politicians who accept money from the NRA are complicit in shooting deaths, although the NRA lobbies by mobilizing its members rather than funding political campaigns.
“This isn’t about the GOP. This isn’t about the Democrats,” student Cameron Kasky said. “This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.”
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