The Marching Women: Inspiring Stories From Young Women in Public Policy by Marisa Lemma

Author:Marisa Lemma [Lemma, Marisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Policy, Public Policy, Political Science
ISBN: 9781641379588
Google: GWeszQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 55054941
Publisher: New Degree Press
Published: 2020-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Spot a Problem and Find a Solution

The young, free to act on their initiative, can lead their elders in the direction of the unknown… The children, the young, must ask the questions that we would never think to ask.

—Margaret Mead87

Emma Gonzalez was just eighteen years old when her life changed drastically. On February 14, 2018, a gunman opened fire in her high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing seventeen people and injuring seventeen others. Luckily, she was not one of those thirty-four people, but some of her friends and classmates were.

Unfortunately, Emma is far from the only person to ever be in this position. In 2018 alone, there were 340 mass shootings. 373 people died from mass shootings that year and over a thousand more were injured.88 In 2019, there were 417 mass shootings, which is an average of more than one per day.89 Emma is one of the countless numbers of people who have had their lives irreparably altered by gun violence. Few, however, have stood up and made their voices heard after a shooting as strongly as Emma did.

On February 17, three days after the Parkland shooting, Emma gave a speech at the Rally to Support Firearm Safety Legislation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “We are up here,” she said at the beginning of the speech, “standing together because, if all our government and president can do is send ‘thoughts and prayers,’ then it’s time for victims to be the change that we need to see.” She spoke for eleven minutes and had to pause several times to allow for the thunderous applause of the crowd.

“The guns have changed and the laws have not,” she said, reminding everyone of the problem. “We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than it is to buy an automatic or semi-automatic weapon.” Under Florida’s gun laws at the time, people didn’t need a permit or a license to buy or carry guns, so it was far too easy to get one.

Emma reminded everyone listening that mass shootings aren’t really a problem in other countries. When the UK or Australia had a mass shooting, they passed gun control laws and didn’t have another one. Emma expressed her frustration with the older generations’ handling of the situation. “Maybe the adults have gotten used to saying ‘it is what it is’ but if us students have learned anything it’s that if you don’t study, you will fail, and in this case, if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead. So, it’s time to start doing something!”

She went on, in that speech, to specifically call out Congress, the NRA, and Donald Trump. She criticized Trump for telling her that it was a terrible tragedy and should never have happened, while still receiving thirty million dollars from the NRA.

“To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you.”

“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA, telling us that nothing could have ever been done to prevent this.

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