For the second time in two weeks, students in Clark County and across the country will take to the streets to demonstrate in the aftermath of last month’s deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Saturday’s March for Our Lives was organized initially by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people died last month after a gunman opened fire at the Parkland, Fla., campus. Since then, groups have organized 817 sister marches across the globe, including in Vancouver. The group’s platform, according to the national website, includes banning “the sale of assault weapons,” including the AR-15, the rifle used by the shooter in last month’s school shooting and in other recent mass shootings.
Participants are also advocating for the ban of high-capacity magazines, as well as closing the controversial “gun show loophole,” which allows unlicensed gun sellers — typically private sellers who sell online or at a gun show — to sell the weapons without conducting background checks.
Emma Busch, the 18-year-old leading the local charge, joined other students and volunteers at the Evergreen Education Association building Saturday to discuss logistics and create signs for the upcoming march.
“Every student is impacted. Every student is affected,” she said.
Participants are directed to meet in one of two places at 1 p.m. — at Hough Elementary School at 1900 N.W. Daniels St., or at the O.O. Howard House, where Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s office is located, at 750 Anderson St. At about 1:20 p.m., both crowds will march toward Esther Short Park for a rally starting at 2 p.m.
School districts last week estimated that thousands of students walked out from their campuses in connection to the National School Walkout. In Vancouver Public Schools and Evergreen Public Schools each, more than 3,000 students demonstrated, while several hundred more participated in walkouts at smaller districts across Clark County.
Winston Handwerker is a 17-year-old junior who helped organize the student walkout at Evergreen High School. He’s also helping organize the upcoming march, which he called “a great next step” for students wishing to advocate for new gun legislation.
“We may not all be able to vote yet, but we can still all make a change,” Handwerker said.
Whether last week’s action signals anything about the march this weekend remains to be seen, but Busch is optimistic students are fueled to continue this streak of activism.
“Hopefully a lot of people who did that felt empowered,” Busch said. “There’s a lot of positive reception happening to the movement.”
The local chapter of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, a national grass-roots effort formed to advocate for stricter gun laws after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, is providing logistical support and funding for the march. Heather Freitag, lead for the local chapter, said adults are taking a back seat at the event, allowing students to take responsibility for the demonstration.
Teen activists have “changed the game” in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, Freitag said, pointing to the outspoken group of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have advocated for gun law reform.
“These are our future leaders,” Freitag said. “They need to plan the world they want.”
The march is the second of three demonstrations planned in the aftermath of last month’s Florida shooting. The next event is another planned National School Walkout on April 20 — the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. According to that organization’s website, 1,606 schools will participate in the walkout, including seven in Clark County.
