The Need For Peace
On Feb. 14, 2018, I was stuffed into the corner of my fifth-period math class, anxiously crouched as I watched the news on my phone. Less than a mile away, the deadliest high school shooting in American history was unfolding.
Headlines read out “School Shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida” “SWAT Responding to Reports of Shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School”.
I was left stuffed in that corner confused and panicked. Only the night before, I was at the Douglas auditorium for my freshman orientation.
I was left thinking of what has become of my town. If I would know any of the victims. How serious it would be. If it was only a false alarm.
When the dust settled and we managed to salvage the rest of our innocence, 17 students and faculty were left dead, shot by an AR-15 rifle.
While I may not have been at the school that day, the effects were everlasting. I found myself thinking more about more mature topics, ones that 14-year-olds shouldn’t have to worry about. Now, it’s almost customary for me to look for exits whenever I’m in public.
I find myself never truly feeling safe when outside, fearing if ‘it’ happens again. And I’m not the only one, all across the greatest country in the world, kids are forced to fear the threat of gun violence.
That Valentine’s day, a day that was supposed to be filled with love and laughter, became a day filled with loss, anguish, and grief. My community’s course drastically changed that day. Before Parkland was ranked as one of the safest cities in Florida, now it’s a town notorious with gun violence and an ever so prevalent feeling of sorrow.
But that’s not the purpose of this piece. I don’t want your pity or thoughts and prayers, I want your action.
Gun violence affected my community, what makes you think it can’t affect yours?
Every day across this nation, 100 people are shot and killed by guns. America’s gun violence rate is 25x that of any other high-income country in the world, and Florida experiences some of the worst of it.
According to the CDC, 2,724 Floridians were killed by gun violence in 2017. From Orlando to Parkland to the streets of Liberty City, gun violence has and is continuing to ravage communities across the state of Florida.
For far too long, lawmakers have refused to listen to the voices of students. It’s time we rise up and demand they listen to us, once and for all.
As young people, we demand that lawmakers take action on this important topic. In April of 2019, March For Our Lives Florida members from across the state marched to the capitol in opposition of SB 7030, a bill that would allow teachers to be armed.
On November 14, 2019, we went back to the capitol. This time proposing our own legislation, The Peace Plan For a Safer Florida.
We, the students of Florida, are proposing the Peace Plan for one simple reason: to reduce gun violence and end the bloodshed in Florida. Thousands of Floridians have experienced gun violence from a result of countless methods such as mass shootings, urban gun violence, suicide, police brutality, hate crimes, domestic violence, and others
.Gun violence has many root causes, including hate, poverty, and despair. It’s a deeply intersectional issue, inextricably bound with the fight for racial justice, economic justice, immigrant rights, and the rights of our LGBTQ allies. And it’s amplified by the societal belief that a gun can solve our problems.
Gun violence is destroying our generation. This is simply unacceptable.
We understand that gun violence is not a one glove fits all solution. That’s why as part of our Peace Plan, we outlined community-based solutions to prevent violence from occurring before it starts.
We included more mental health and suicide prevention resources, additional funding to research gun violence, and implicit bias training for all police officers and teachers as part of our Peace Plan.
Now is the time that Florida legislators need to act. Too many lives have already been lost, 40,000 every year to be exact.
Lawmakers have a simple choice to make: Vote in favor of gun safety — the side of peace and acting on gun violence, or the side of the NRA and their blood money.
We also have the power to vote complacent lawmakers out of office. We’ve already registered 50,000 young people to vote nationally and we’re not stopping anytime soon.
In 2020, we will be watching how our lawmakers plan to address gun violence, and voting them out if they don’t.
Support the Peace Plan For a Safer Florida today, written by survivors so you don’t have to be one.
Read our Peace Plan For a Safer Florida.
