silubaba news:
A year after the shooting massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, students across the US honored the 17 victims with a moment of silence and somber vigils.
The Valentine's Day shooting by a former student at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school took the lives of 14 students and three school staff members.
Sudents at 1,000 schools in Florida remembered the victims during a moment of silence at 10.17 am — the exact time the shooter unloaded his assault weapon. Stoneman Douglas also held a quiet interfaith service.
To help the healing, the city of Parkland organized an evening vigil at a park near the school, the same site where students had called for gun control shortly after the shooting.
David Hogg, an 18 -year-old student who became a proponent for gun control and co-founded the March for Our Lives movement, said the pain lives on.
"We can't move on from this, when it's something that never should have happened. You can't move on from your sister constantly crying, every day, because she doesn't have her four best friends anymore," he said.
In the nation's capital, youths calling for stricter gun control placed 671 white T-shirts (with the names of teenage gun violence victims in 2018) on a fence outside the Bethesda Chevy Chase High School.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday called the day a "somber anniversary" and said he was "recommitted to ensuring the safety of all Americans".
It was the activism by teenagers at Stoneman Douglas that helped shift public opinion on gun control, according to the Washington-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
"Prior to Parkland, we had seen changes that had happened, small incremental statewide changes …but Parkland and the way that the movement grew from the students out of it, really changed the culture and discussion," Andrew Patrick, media director for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, told China Daily. "You saw businesses dropping their affiliation with the NRA [National Rifle Association.] You saw lawmakers refuse to pledge to take NRA money when they had previously."
Former president Barack Obama tweeted that the students "marched, organized and pushed for the way things should be — helping pass meaningful new gun violence laws".
On Wednesday, the US House Judiciary Committee signed off on a bill that would require universal background checks for gun purchases. With Democrats now controlling the House, the panel voted along party lines to approve the bill, 23-15. But it has little chance of approval in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Congressman Peter King, a Republican from New York, was one of two sponsors of the legislation.
King told China Daily in a statement: "There is no single law that can put an end to mass shootings or gun violence, but there are certainly proactive steps we can take to keep guns out of the hands of felons, domestic abusers, and the dangerously mentally ill. When background checks are used, they keep guns out of the hands of people we all agree shouldn't have guns."
Contact the writer at belindarobinson@chinadailyusa.com
silubaba.us news online
微信扫描下方的二维码阅读本文
