Florida school shooting survivors call for tougher gun laws

At an emotional rally on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Emma Gonzalez, a senior at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland where the massacre took place on February 14, demanded national lawmakers do something to prevent mass school shootings.

By: IANS | Miami | Published: February 18, 2018 12:53 pm

Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, speaks to the media after calling for more gun control at a rally three days after the shooting at her school, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US February 17, 2018. (Reuters)

Survivors of a deadly shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 students and teachers, have called for tougher gun laws in the country and and urged voters to kick out lawmakers who oppose the move, the media reported. At an emotional rally on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Emma Gonzalez, a senior at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland where the massacre took place on February 14, demanded national lawmakers do something to prevent mass school shootings, reports CNN.

“We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than to buy an automatic or semiautomatic weapon,” Gonzalez, who huddled in an auditorium during the shooting, said at the rally outside a federal courthouse. “Maybe the adults have got 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.”

She addressed politicians, saying to those who take campaign donations from the National Rifle Association (NRA): “Shame on you.” Hundreds of people gathered began to chant, “Shame on you! Shame on you!”

As she ended her remarks, she shouted her disagreement with what she hears from the other side of the gun laws debate, CNN reported. “Politicians who sit in their gilded house and senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS!. “They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS,” she cried with the crowd screaming along with the final word.

The attack, one of the worst mass shootings in US history, was carried out by a former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, 19. He killed 17 people — 14 students, three staff members — and injured 15 others. He was expelled from the school for “disciplinary reasons”. Cruz, who has had a history of mental illness, is currently at the main Broward County jail facing 17 counts of premeditated murder. His next court date is set for Monday.

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