“Together, we rose up four years ago. One million of us demanded change. We built a movement. We voted for new leaders. And the gun deaths increased. Now is the moment we march again.”
By Brett Wilkins Published 5-26-2022 by Common Dreams
March For Our Lives student protest for gun control St. Paul, Minnesota March 7, 2018. Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/CC
Four years, over 100 school shootings, and more than 170,000 U.S. firearm deaths after the first March For Our Lives rallies in 2018, the student-led gun control advocacy group announced Wednesday that it would stage a new nationwide day of protest on June 11 following Tuesday’s Robb Elementary School massacre in Texas.
“Together, we rose up four years ago. One million of us demanded change. We built a movement. We voted for new leaders. And the gun deaths increased,” March For Our Lives tweeted. “Now is the moment we march again.”
Responding to Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas—in which 19 children and two adults were murdered—March For Our Lives asked, “Do our lives mean fucking nothing?”
“Here we are again, saying the same thing,” the group continued, “the disgusting and shameful fact in America is that another shooting like this was just a matter of time because of our political leaders’ breathtaking disregard for our lives. We are enraged at politicians who stand in the way of lifesaving change on both sides of the aisle.”
Together, we rose up 4 years ago. 1 million of us demanded change. We built a movement. We voted for new leaders.
And the gun deaths increased.
Now is the moment we march again. Can we count on you to be there June 11?
Text MARCH to 954-954 to RSVP and learn more. pic.twitter.com/XsfbXBQWei
— March For Our Lives (@AMarch4OurLives) May 25, 2022
“You can’t stop a bullet with thoughts and prayers,” March For Our Lives added. “To honor those lost and save countless lives, we need action. We’re dying while we wait for it.”
As students across the United States walked out of their classrooms Thursday to protest gun violence and decades of politicians’ inaction, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators met to discuss gun control. Right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia—who last year opposed a bill passed by the House that would require background checks on all firearm purchases—this time signaled a possible change of heart.
“I can’t get my grandchildren out of my mind. It could have been them,” he said, referring to the Texas shooting.
.@Sen_JoeManchin + anyone who stands in our way, it’s time to commit to common-sense gun legislation, like Universal Background Checks.
We have no time to waste, for your grandkids, for our friends. We’re marching, you decide whether your name is shamed while we’re on stage. https://t.co/7SOSQEtcjs
— March For Our Lives (@AMarch4OurLives) May 26, 2022
Manchin added that he would do “anything I can” to advance “common sense” firearms legislation. Anything, critics noted, except end the filibuster, which Republican lawmakers have repeatedly used to stymie their opponents’ progressive agenda.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation aimed at combating the growing threat posed by neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and other domestic extremists, less than two weeks after a white supremacist murdered 10 people, most of them Black, in a Buffalo, New York supermarket. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed the measure just five days after the Buffalo shooting.
At least one million and perhaps twice that many people in the United States and around the world took part in the March 24, 2018 March For Our Lives, including up to 800,000 demonstrators in Washington, D.C. The massive demonstrations occurred weeks after 17 people were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Prominent participants in the protest included Parkland survivor David Hogg, who was subsequently mocked and harassed by future Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who called the massacre and other school shootings false-flag operations orchestrated by Democrats pushing gun control legislation.
According to Education Week—which began tracking U.S. school shootings two weeks before Parkland—there have been 119 such incidents, with 88 deaths and 229 injuries, since February 2018.
