On Saturday, March 24th, 2018 hundreds of people participated in the March for Our Lives protest in Washington, D.C. The march was for gun control laws and the ending to gun violence and mass shootings. The event that triggered this public outcry was the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month as students stepped up to fight for the regulations. It drew a lot of support and there were about 850,000 people in the crowd. This is sure to change at least something and since there have been over 30 shootings in 2018 this year, it is time to make a change.
The most captivating part of Saturday was the speeches that were given to the crowd from people who were directly involved in the shootings. These people have been directly tied to the shootings due to unfortunate events in their schools and have seen the negative side of no gun control laws with their own eyes. One never knows that it can happen to you until it actually happens to you. It is getting way too common to turn a blind eye to it anymore.
The most moving speech was given by Emma González, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, where she saw her friends die right before her eyes. She is not complacent but rather extremely angry about the progress the government is making on this issue. She has become the face of the gun control movement.
You can watch the speech here:
In the speech, she listed off the names of everyone who was killed and described the things they would never do again, which highlighted just how traumatized their school environment is. By describing the mundane tasks that these students took for granted, no one could never imagine that a gunman could come in and disrupt that. It showed it could happen to anyone, anytime and any place.
After her statements, she stood in silence in tears, which was confusing to the crowd but then she stated,
She walked away from the podium with almost everyone in the crowd in tears and disbelief. The speech was truly moving and I hope it certainly makes the government think about all the pain it is causing innocent victims. This was the speech to actually make a change, and since it is going around on almost every social media platform- people are going to get behind this movement. I am so proud of this generation for speaking up against the government and I can’t wait to see it take off. What Emma González did was powerful and it is sure to make an impact.
