Tag Archives: March for Our Lives

Advocates ‘Elated’ as Biden DOJ Closes Gun Show Loophole

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“To be clear, that ‘gun show loophole’ has been a death sentence for countless Americans, and that will change with this action,” said one gun violence prevention advocacy leader.

By Julia Conley. Published 4-11-2024 by Common Dreams

Advocates rally in favor of gun control measure. (Photo: Peter Cedric Rock Smith//flickr/cc)

The White House on Thursday honored “the will of the vast majority of the American people,” one Democratic lawmaker said, as President Joe Biden announced a final rule closing a loophole that has left tens of thousands of firearms dealers able to sell guns without running background checks on purchasers.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) will require anyone “engaged in the business” of selling firearms for a profit to register as a federally licensed firearms dealer, which will require them to conduct background criminal and mental health checks on their customers.

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‘May You Rot in Hell, Wayne’: LaPierre Resigns From NRA Before Corruption Trial

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The outgoing gun lobby chief cited health reasons for the move. One critic responded that “for decades, Wayne LaPierre functioned without a heart and half a brain so he must be in very dire straits.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 1-5-2024 by Common Dreams

Wayne LaPierre speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Gun control advocates celebrated on Friday as Wayne LaPierre announced he is stepping down as chief executive of the National Rifle Association—a development that comes just days ahead of a New York corruption trial scheduled to start on Monday.

LaPierre, who has led the NRA for over three decades, is an individual defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case targeting the gun lobbying group. The 74-year-old cited health reasons for the resignation, which will take effect on January 31.

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Call Embraced for Prolonged Student Walkout Over Nation’s Refusal to Act on Guns

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“How can we expect them to walk into the firing line every day?” asked one group in support for the proposal.

By Julia Conley  Published 6-1-2022 by Common Dreams

March for Our Lives in Manhattan, New York City, in March 2018. Photo: Rhododendrites/Wikimedia Commons/CC

As 21 families in Uvalde, Texas hold funerals for the 19 children and two adults who were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School last week, gun control advocates are grappling with the question of what it will take to stop gun violence, with some proposing that students and teachers hold the largest school walkout yet—one in which they would refuse to return to school until lawmakers pass far-reaching reforms.

With summer vacation approaching, Gal Beckerman wrote at The Atlantic Tuesday, “students should refuse to go back to school” in the fall without the passage of an assault weapons ban—a law which existed in the U.S. in the past and whose expiration correlated to a rise in mass shootings, according to researchers. Continue reading →

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‘No Time to Waste’: New Nationwide March For Our Lives Protests Set for June 11

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“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.” Continue reading →

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International Support Grows for Mexico’s Lawsuit Against US Gun-Makers

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“I feel very encouraged because this means that what we are doing as a government is worth doing,” a Mexican official said. “We are confirming that the missing link in this whole equation of illicit trafficking is the gun companies.”

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 2-1-2022 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: WFXB

In a big boost to the Mexican government’s historic federal lawsuit against American gun-makers, 13 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, two countries, a coalition of attorneys general, and numerous advocacy groups on Monday filed or joined amicus briefs supporting Mexico’s litigation, which seeks to hold weapons manufacturers accountable for the violence they facilitate.

Law.com reports attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon joined an amicus brief filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey urging a federal court in Boston to deny the gun-makers’ motions to dismiss the suit. Continue reading →

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‘A Day That Will Live in Infamy’: This Is What It Looked Like When Wisconsin Forced In-Person Voting During a Pandemic

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“People are being forced to risk their lives to place their vote or fulfill their right as an American to vote.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-7-2020

Photo: Don Moynihan/flickr

As footage of Wisconsin’s crowded polling stations flooded the internet Tuesday, public health officials and civil rights advocates condemned the state’s Supreme Court and Republican legislative leaders for allowing in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic and thwarting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ last-minute efforts to address voter safety concerns.

“It’s not going to be a safe election. People are going to get sick from this,” Brook Soltvedt, a 60-year-old textbook editor who is in charge of running the polling place at Thoreau Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital, told The Cap Times. Continue reading →

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‘For Taking Great Risks in Pursuit of Greater Truths,’ Journalists Under Attack Named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year

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“They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world…who risk all to tell the story of our time.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-11-2018

Jamal Khashoggi and some of the Capital Gazette staff were included in TIME magazine’s Person of the Year issue, which honored journalists who have been killed, imprisoned, and attacked in the past year. (Photo: TIME Magazine)

Capping off a year marked by accusations of “fake news,” hurled at journalists by President Donald Trump and other global threats to press freedom, TIME magazine selected as Person of the Year journalists who have spent the past year fighting increased hostility toward their work—including those who lost their lives as a result of their reporting.

Calling journalists under attack “guardians” of the truth, the  magazine announced the selected Tuesday as it prepared to release four covers of the yearly issue. Continue reading →

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The March for Our Lives in Pictures: Demonstrators Mourn Those Lost to Gun Violence and Condemn Complicit Politicians

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“Who here is going to vote in the 2018 election? If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 3-24-2018

Photo: Twitter

Taking the stage on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, high school student David Hogg offered hundreds of thousands of audience members a visual representation of his reasons for helping to organize the March for Our Lives, a worldwide gun control advocacy demonstration.

“I’m going to start off by putting this price tag right here as a reminder for you guys to know how much Marco Rubio took for every student’s life in Florida,” Hogg said, placing a price tag reading “$1.05” on the podium. Continue reading →

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Ahead of ‘March for Our Lives,’ Student Manifesto Outlines Steps to Eradicate ‘Plague of Gun Violence’

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“We will be marching this Saturday for those that we loved and lost, and we write this in the hope that no other community or publication will ever have to do the same.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 3-23-2018 

“We are firsthand witnesses to the kind of devastation that gross incompetence and political inaction can produce,” Parkland student journalists wrote in The Guardian. (Photo: March for Our Lives)

Ahead of the historic “March for Our Lives” demonstrations taking place nationwide on Saturday, student journalists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—the site of a shooting last month that left 17 dead—published a manifesto in The Guardian on Friday declaring that they can no longer “stand idly by as the country continues to be infected by a plague of gun violence.”

“We have a unique platform not only as student journalists, but also as survivors of a mass shooting. We are firsthand witnesses to the kind of devastation that gross incompetence and political inaction can produce,” wrote the students, who work for the Stoneman Douglas school newspaper The Eagle Eye. “We will be marching this Saturday for those that we loved and lost, and we write this in the hope that no other community or publication will ever have to do the same.”

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