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#NeverAgain: Teens Organize & Speak Out After the Parkland Shooting (Is This Time Going To Be Different?)

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Students and staff members who survived Nickolas Cruz’s deadly rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School spoke out Saturday and railed against the gun lobby and gun laws that enabled him to purchase an assault weapon.

High school student Emma Gonzalez began her speech with a moment of silence for the 17 victims who were killed Wednesday,

“All these people should be at home grieving. But instead we are up here, 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.”

Gonzalez demanded to know where the “common sense” is in America’s gun laws, and called out members of Congress who’ve taken money from the NRA.

She also had a message for Trump, criticizing him for tweeting a call for action on mental health, while adding that he overturned an Obama-era law that made it harder for people with mental illness to purchase a gun.

“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a ‘terrible tragedy’ then I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the NRA.”

Students held up photos of their classmates who were killed, and at times responded to speeches with chants of

“Vote them out!”

and

“Rubio must go!”

Douglas High student Sarah Chadwick, whose reply to Trump’s condolence tweet went viral, carried a sign that read,

“we don’t want your thoughts and condolences, we want policy & change.”

Melissa Falkowski, a Douglas High English and journalism teacher, who hid in the closet of her classroom during the shooting, spoke through tears at the rally and said she has made it her mission in life to fight for gun legislation and to ensure that school shootings never happen again,

“They say ‘it’s not the time’ — Now is the time! There is no other time!”

David Hogg, a 17-year-old senior whose message to lawmakers went viral after the shooting, said he wanted the community to channel its pain and frustration into voting out the politicians who support gun laws.

“This fight is not going to be easy. This fight is not going to be short. The people and the special interests who want to pass gun laws and make it easier for people to get guns are not going to stop — and we can’t either.

Now is the time that we say thank you for your prayers and your thoughts but that’s not enough.”

Trump, who made no reference to the issue of gun control in an address to the nation about the shooting on Thursday, on Twitter blamed Democrats for a lack of action.

“Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!”

Trump in Thursday’s address said he would work to help the nation “secure our schools and tackle the difficult issue of mental health.” The president on Friday visited victims of the mass shooting at a hospital.

Below are the victims names and ages. This has to stop.

#NeverAgain

(Photos, Twitter; via NBC News)


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