Florida Shooting Survivors Announce Nationwide March To Demand Gun Control

February 18, 2018 Kayla Pasacreta

By: Kayla Pasacreta

The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school, where Wednesday's tragic mass shooting occurred, are making their voices heard to advocate for gun control. In fact, these teenagers seem to be leading talks and efforts to put pressure on Congress to abandon their interests in the NRA and create gun control legislation.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma Gonzalez, photo via Getty Images

In a compelling speech made by 17-year old Cameron Kasky, she stated, "We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. Not because we're going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because, just as David said, we are going to be the last mass shooting." Another student, senior David Hogg criticized lawmakers for their inaction in the wake of mass shootings, "The future of our country are those children that are currently dying because politicians refuse to take action."

Below is a powerful excerpt from Cameron Kasky's speech:

And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call BS.Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers these days, saying that all we are self-involved and trend-obsessed and they hush us into submission when our message doesn't reach the ears of the nation, we are prepared to call BS. 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 tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS. If you agree, register to vote. Contact your local congresspeople. Give them a piece of your mind. (Crowd chants) Throw them out.

Women's March organizers are getting behind the movement, and calling for a nationwide 17-minute student walk-out on March 14th.

Several students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are committed to making sure other students don't have to endure the same tragedy they went through. Student Emma Gonzalez stated, "We want to be with those students who we didn’t understand their pain before and it’s all too tragic that we all have to understand the same pain now.”