March For Our Lives: a quick recap!

This was amazing to be a part of. Attending the March for Our Lives in Washington, DC truly made me feel like I was a part of history. I feel very strongly about gun reform, and have never been a big fan of guns as a whole, and this experience made me hopeful for change.

A lot of big name celebs showed up to give their support, singing their inspirational songs that the crowd already knew. It was a nice way to get everyone going, and of course was kind of like an awesome free concert within the event. Although the celebrities were far from my favorite part of the day, it was really cool so see some of my faves, including Demi Lovato, JHud, Ariana Grande, Lin Manuel Miranda, Common, and more. And don’t forget my girl Miley, who rocked it in a crew neck sweatshirt and jeans.

I think one of the things that gave me the most hope was seeing the “next generation” show up and project their voice. Martin Luther King’s granddaughter was brought on stage, screaming her support, saying “We are going to be a great generation!” Another 11 year old black girl talked about how her voice makes a difference, and how it won’t be silenced just because of her age, race, or gender.

Emma Gonzalez, who is famous for her activism in gun reform after the shooting at Parkland High School, stood on the stage for a silent 6 minutes to represent the amount of time that the shooter had fired his gun in her school before abandoning his rifle. After a few minutes of silence, it started to feel like forever, and people started putting up the peace sign in their air with their fingers.

My favorite part was the teacher, Samantha Fuentes, who was a survivor of the Parkland shooting as well. She gave an extremely passionate speech, which included singing “Happy Birthday” to a student who was a victim of the shooting, and would have turned 18 that day. In the beginning of her speech, she got choked up and the live stream cut away for a minute to let her situate herself. When she regained composure, she screamed into the mic, “I just threw up on international television, and it feels great!”

There was also representation from big cities such as Chicago, who had an extremely important message about how this all started. This issue gained traction after the Parkland students combined forces with those who were already fighting against gun violence. A young girl who grew up in Chicago spoke about her brother passing and how she has been running from this fight her entire life. This issue started in the cities and is going to keep spreading and spreading until we do something to stop it.

In between each speaker, there was different promos on the TV screens to highlight the facts and findings behind the emotions of what they were saying. These promos included facts about the NRA, policy change, and Vets for Gun Reform. It’s not just about hearing stories of shootings, but also about the hard facts about what is causing this epidemic within our country. We have to educate ourselves completely to move forward and affect true change.

#Enough #NeverAgain #EnoughisEnough

Take military weapons out of civilian homes. Require universal background checks on all weapons. Raise the age requirement and lengthen the waiting period. Make our schools, our concerts, our night clubs, our movie theaters SAFE again. VOTE.

Thanks for reading!