Thousands of students, emboldened by a growing protest movement over gun violence, stood up in their classrooms on Wednesday and walked out of their schools in a nationwide demonstration, one month after a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Florida.
The 17-minute protests unfolding at hundreds of schools are intended to pressure Congress to approve gun control legislation after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and come 10 days before major protests in Washington and elsewhere.
Here’s what to know:
• The first large wave of students began to leave their classrooms at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Across the country, others are walking out at 10 a.m. in their local time zones.
• The demonstrations were not limited to school property. In New York, students marched in the streets, while in Washington, sign-clutching students gathered outside the White House and on Capitol Hill.
• School administrators have been grappling with how to respond. Some districts welcomed or even tacitly encouraged walkouts, while others threatened disciplinary action against students who participated.
Apparently the threats of disciplinary action has done little to dissuade the students who are showing up in huge numbers.
And they are making the most of the media attention.
Boston students show up on school snow day to protest gun violence https://t.co/Wfh9fZTMTE pic.twitter.com/5akFg8eMWd— The Hill (@thehill) March 14, 2018
Atlanta students take a knee as part of gun violence protest https://t.co/Imt9seLAzz pic.twitter.com/zPpUU56bx8— The Hill (@thehill) March 14, 2018
It's things like this which put my mind at ease about the future of our planet."In an ideal world, the 20 first graders and kindergartners who died at Sandy Hook would be in middle school... the 32 students who died at Virginia Tech would be at work.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 14, 2018
The students at Stoneman Douglas would be eating lunch right now.” (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/OKOONTx1hN
Source http://ift.tt/2peyoJZ
