On the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., students across the country walked out of their schools to raise awareness for school safety and gun control.
For the movement’s National Walkout Day, some demonstrations were silent and some young dissenters chanted. Some students took over a statehouse, others to the capitol. Some addressed a crowd, others laid down in remembrance.
The demonstration took place at schools throughout the country, including other schools that have been scarred by massacres, like Columbine and Sandy Hook. Some students, like those in Conway Junior High in Arkansas, were forced to sign up for a Saturday detention for walking out.
Per CG, Conway Junior High School student protesters were escorted back into school at 10:17, where they signed a sheet and were told they would be assigned Saturday detention. #NationalSchoolWalkout
— Donna Bowman (@donnadb) March 14, 2018
Most of the walkouts observed silence for 17 minutes, one minute for each life lost at the Parkland shooting. Although stricter gun laws have been proposed in Florida, only Senate Bill 7026 passed on Friday. The law allows teachers to bear arms in school and raises the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 from 18.
However, this large show of activism opens the dialogue beyond local politics. States outside Florida will have to face their students if their demands for better safety remains unanswered.
The walkout could prove to be a turning point in the gun control debate. Many of the high schoolers walking out today are on the cusp of voting, and it’s likely many who participated in the demonstration won’t soon forget it.
Congress planned to take modest steps Wednesday to prevent violence in classrooms — even as they continued to battle over broader action to curb gun rights.
In the House, lawmakers are set to pass the STOP School Violence Act of 2018, introduced by Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.), a former sheriff from Jacksonville, Fla., and co-sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), whose district includes Parkland. More than 30 lawmakers in both parties back the bill. A similar bill by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) is awaiting consideration in the Senate.
The bill reauthorizes a program created in 2001 through the Justice Department to prevent threats against school. That would include the following:-
• Authorize $50 million to intensify school security
• Pay for federal “threat assessment teams” to help school districts sort through reported threats.
• Create an anonymous reporting system so that students and others can report threats and pay for training and technical assistance programs for law enforcement and school officials to help identify potentially violent behavior.
Still, the bill says nothing about firearms, which is a top demand of Stoneman Douglas students. They are pushing for consideration of a proposed federal ban on military-style rifles and a revamp of the national criminal background check system that failed to pass five years ago in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting.
Follow this list of Post reporters covering the walkouts across the country for the latest updates.
