MIAMI - On Valentine's Day of last year, a 19-year-old armed with a military-style assault rifle walked into his old high school in Parkland, Florida and slaughtered 17 people.
That spasm in America's epidemic of gun violence gave new impetus to the debate on controlling firearms, prompting marches across the country and a fresh round of hand-wringing in cable news studios.
Many of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors such as David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez remain national figures a year on -- a testament to their tenacity in keeping the atrocity in the headlines -- yet concrete reform has remained limited and local.
Meanwhile America risks becoming inured to the carnage: four months before Parkland a gunman killed 58 people at a festival in Las Vegas while, 16 months earlier, a massacre at a gay night club in Orlando left 49 dead.
Nearly 1,200 children lost their lives to gun violence in the year since Parkland, according to a report from McClatchy newspapers and The Trace, a non-profit that chronicles firearms issues. More than 200 teen journalists banded together to profile the young victims for the report.
And with 37 mass shootings -- those with at least four victims, not including the assailant -- recorded already in the US this year, it is tempting to conclude that almost nothing has changed.
The inertia on gun control endures despite the best efforts of the Parkland students, who rejected the usual outpourings of sympathy offered by politicians and launched a nationwide movement seeking tougher regulation on sales.
"So many shootings have happened and you get 'thoughts and prayers' and then nothing happens," said Ryan Servaites, who survived the shooting.
"It's an absolute shame that our government has done absolutely nothing about it. So you know, we're fed up," Servaites, 16, told AFP.
'OUR CHILDHOOD ENDED'
A month after the shooting, the student activists brought together hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Washington, under the "March for Our Lives" banner.
The teenagers toured 26 states, visiting schools and talking with lawmakers. They published a book, took part in an HBO documentary and, most importantly, caused state laws to be changed.
"In just 11 minutes, our childhood ended," Hogg and Gonzalez wrote in November in The Washington Post.
Florida is governed by Republicans and posed a major challenge for the student activists. But they successfully pushed for passage of state laws opposed by the powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.
Among other changes, a "red flag" law was passed allowing judges to order the seizure of guns from people deemed to be mentally unstable and the minimum age for purchasing a gun was raised to 21.
The sale and possession of devices known as bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire as fast as illegal machineguns, and which were used to such deadly effect in Las Vegas, were also banned.
In December, President Donald Trump barred them at the national level.
After Parkland, 26 states and US capital Washington approved 67 laws related to gun control, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
In a report last December, the center said the movement for gun safety in America "experienced a tectonic shift in 2018."
BIG PLANS FOR 2019
Yet significant nationwide reform to slash gun deaths has largely eluded the activists, who have vowed to entrench their campaign in 2019.
On Friday last week lawmakers from both parties presented Congress with a bill that would require universal background checks prior to gun purchases.
Under current laws, licensed dealers must carry out background checks on would-be buyers, but loopholes allow people to avoid such checks if they buy from a private seller, at gun shows or over the internet.
Defenders of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which establishes the right to bear arms, will fight the bill.
The NRA said such a law would not dissuade criminals, who will always find some way to acquire a firearm.
"These bills attack law-abiding gun owners by placing further burdens on gun ownership and use," its website states.
Tom Palmer, a gun rights supporting political scientist and vice president of free-market think tank Atlas Network, told the Miami Herald the two sides in the gun debate could not be more polarized.
"The gun control people see their opponents as people who don't care about human life, and the gun rights people see their opponents as people who don't care about human freedom," Palmer said.
Also worth noting: in a closely contested race for Florida's governorship in last November's mid-term elections, NRA-endorsed Republican Rick DeSantis beat Democrat Andrew Gillum, who backed stricter gun controls.
Undeterred, a group of Parkland survivors launched a petition on Monday which, if it garners the almost 800,000 signatures needed, will trigger a referendum on banning military-style assault rifles in Florida.
Meanwhile Nikolas Cruz, the defendant in the Parkland shooting, awaits his day in court. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty on 17 counts of pre-meditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
lm/dw/jh-ec
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - More than a million Americans flooded the streets of cities nationwide for emotional protests demanding tighter gun control on Saturday, in a march spearheaded by teenagers from a Florida high school where 17 people were shot dead last month.
"Politicians, either represent the people or get out," Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, told the crowd at a huge rally in Washington.
"Stand for us or beware -- the voters are coming," said Kasky, one of the leaders of a dynamic and passionate student movement which has emerged following the February 14 shooting at his school.
Large crowds also turned out for demonstrations in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Seattle and other cities -- more than 800 in all according to the organizers of the "March For Our Lives."
Mayor Bill de Blasio said 175,000 people took part at the New York rally, tweeting: "These students WILL change America."
But the largest protest was in Washington, where organizers told NBC News the crowd was estimated at more than 800,000 people, the largest gun control rally in the United States since the Million Mom March in 2000.
The main stage for the event in Washington was set up near the US Capitol and lawmakers were the target audience as speakers delivered blistering warnings that the time has come for stricter gun laws.
"The people demand a law banning the sale of assault weapons," Kasky said. "The people demand we prohibit the sale of high-capacity magazines. The people demand universal background checks."
March organizers included a link for people to register to vote on their MarchForOurLives.com website as they seek to transform their nascent movement into a potent political force.
Republicans, NRA criticized
Signs carried by protestors lambasted lawmakers who oppose tougher laws and the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful US gun lobby.
"These kids are right," said Jeff Turchin, a 68-year-old retired garment manufacturer who came to Washington from New York to attend the rally.
"They're basically saying the NRA is paying off these Republicans," Turchin said of the party of President Donald Trump, which also controls Congress.
The Washington rally kicked off with Andra Day singing "Rise Up" and also featured a performances by Jennifer Hudson, whose mother, brother and seven-year-old nephew were shot dead in 2008.
But the most riveting appearances were by the Stoneman Douglas students.
Emma Gonzalez, 17, took the stage wearing a green military-style jacket and ripped jeans and delivered a eulogy for the 14 students and three adults slain by 19-year-old gunman Nikolas Cruz.
Tears rolling down her face, she then stood in silence at the podium for a full four and half minutes as the crowd fidgeted and some cried out "We're with you Emma."
"Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and 20 seconds," Gonzalez finally said -- the exact amount of time Cruz spent spraying bullets inside her school before fleeing.
"Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job," Gonzalez said. "Get out there and vote."
Yolanda Renee King, the nine-year-old granddaughter of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. brought many to tears with a surprise appearance.
"My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," she told a rapt crowd.
"I have a dream that enough is enough," she said, referencing her grandfather's famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on ending racism.
"And that this should be a gun-free world -- period."
'Killing our children'
In New York, former Beatle Paul McCartney showed up at a march and spoke of the December 1980 murder of his bandmate John Lennon.
"Every week you hear about a new shooting and nothing is done about it," McCartney told AFP. "But I think maybe after this something will be done about it."
On the other side of the country in Los Angeles, comedian Amy Schumer delivered a passionate plea in front of hundreds of thousands.
"You are killing children," she said, of the gun lobby. "And they call people like me 'Hollywood liberals' like there's something in it for us.
"Well, what's in it for us is knowing we're doing our part to keep our children alive."
Demonstrations of solidarity also took place around the world, including across cities in Canada, which unveiled stricter gun laws earlier this week including enhanced background checks.
In Scotland, some relatives of those killed in a school shooting in the town of Dunblane in 1996 attended a protest in Edinburgh.
Thousands meanwhile gathered in Parkland to pay tribute to those slain in the city on Valentine's Day.
"I March Because I Was Almost Silenced," read a sign carried by Samantha Mayor, 17, who was shot in the knee and wears a heavy brace.
Samantha's mother, Ellyn, held a sign reading "I'm Marching So No Other Parent Has to Hear 'Mom, I've Been Shot.'"
Trump was in Florida as marchers gathered in Washington but the White House issued a statement.
"We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today," it said. "Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President's."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Students who walked out of their Montgomery County, Maryland, schools protest against gun violence in front of the White House in Washington, US on Wednesday.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
