Young people affected by the Douglas school shooting are calling for greater action to be taken.
Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida saw an emotional rally bringing together politicians and Marjory Stoneman Douglas students as they both called for a ban on weapons like the one used to kill 17 people at the Florida high school.
The groups merged together to urge voters to kick out lawmakers who oppose the move or who take money from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
In a passionate speech which has since gone viral on Twitter, senior cycle student Emma Gonzalez demanded national lawmakers do something to prevent mass school shootings.
“We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than to buy an automatic or semiautomatic weapon,” Gonzalez spoke boldly at the rally outside a federal courthouse.
Gonzalez, who huddled in the school’s auditorium for safety at the time of the shooting, demanded that laws change because she said they have not, while guns have changed.
“Maybe the adults have got used to saying, ‘It is what it is,'” she said.
“But if us students have learned anything, it’s that if you don’t study, you will fail. And in this case if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead.”
She addressed politicians, saying to those who take campaign donations from the NRA: “Shame on you.”
Hundreds of people gathered began to chant, “Shame on you! Shame on you!”
As she finished her speech, she cried her disagreement with what she hears from the other side of the gun laws debate.
“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!”
“They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS,” she spoke while wiping away tears from her eyes as the crowd shouts “Throw them out.”
A football coach, an athletic director and young students were among the 17 people killed by a gunman Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
