Source: Common Dreams

Students across the United States walked out of their classrooms Thursday to protest gun violence and years of inaction in Washington, D.C. they blame for allowing mass shootings to continue, like the one that killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School this week.

“No more thoughts and prayers.”

At 12:00 p.m. Eastern time, students and teachers at more than 80 elementary, middle, and high schools took part in the nationwide demonstration organized by Students Demand Action, a branch of Everytown for Gun Safety.

“We refuse to go on like this,” tweeted the organization.

“We plan to host a walkout in protest of gun violence in schools and inaction regarding gun laws this Thursday at 11 a.m. in accordance with the nationwide walkout,” wrote students in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. “We believe it is very important that our community recognizes the voices of students regarding mass shootings in schools as we are the group most affected by this new reality, yet have the least say in changing the laws and statutes that impact us so much.”

Northwood High School students in Irvine, California condemned “the ‘thoughts and prayers’ of our so-called leaders” and called gun violence and mass shootings, which have taken place at 27 U.S. schools so far this year, “a symptom of a larger disease of white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and antisemitism that often motivates deranged shooters to carry out these horrors.”

“We strongly believe in the right of Americans, especially students in light of recent shootings in Texas, to lead a free, prosperous, and secure life in the wealthiest nation on Earth,” they wrote. “We are walking out because we refuse to accept a country where gunfire can ring out at any moment, whether it’s while grocery shopping at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, at a party in San Bernardino, or at graduations across the country. Enough is enough. No more thoughts and prayers.”

The walkouts are being held as representatives of Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, and Everytown join Democratic lawmakers at a rally in Washington, D.C. to demand passage of gun control laws such as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 (H.R. 8), which would expand background checks for all gun purchases and transfers, and the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021 (H.R. 1446), which would close a loophole that allows gun sales without a background check if three businesses days have passed.

“We ask our senators: WHO do you work for?” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. “Do you work for the 90% of Americans who support common-sense gun safety laws? Or do you work for gun manufacturers who pad their pockets and protect their power while over 110 Americans are shot and killed every day?”

Mia Tretta, a survivor of the Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, California that killed two of her classmates in November 2019, organized a walkout at her school, tweeting, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do my homework, I was planning a life-saving revolution.”

David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida in February 2018 and co-founder of March for Our Lives, called on communities across the U.S. to hold vigils at their local elementary schools Thursday evening and suggested students hold regular walkouts until legislative action is taken.

“Legislators need to keep in mind that if we can’t vote now, they need to listen because we will be able to vote eventually,” Maddie Ahmadi, a 17-year-old advisory board member for Students Demand Action, told Bloomberg. “And if they are not hearing us and they are not passing common sense gun legislation, we are going to vote them out of office.”

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.

Donate
Donate
Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

THE WIND CRIES FREEDOM

The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.

Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.

The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.

Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.

“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”

Yanis Varoufakis

“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”

Bill Fletcher Junior

“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”

Cynthia Peters

You've just read your article on Z this month.

DOES Z'S SURVIVAL MATTER?

You keep coming back for a reason: serious political analysis, movement reporting, and debate beyond the priorities of corporate media. Today, Z is in a precarious financial position. If Z is part of how you understand the world, help keep it going. The readers who give monthly are the reason this work survives between fundraisers.

Z is in a precarious financial position. If it’s part of how you understand the world, help keep it going.

Number of donors708
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Z is in the most precarious financial position in its history.

Z is a place to think beyond the limits of the present.

For decades, Z has brought together political analysis, movement reporting, debate, and visions of a different future from writers and activists around the world. That work is more than journalism. It is movement infrastructure: movements need places to develop ideas, test arguments, learn from experience, and imagine what comes next.

In the first two days of this fundraiser, 19 donors and 8 new monthly sustainers stepped up. Help us reach 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone.

For decades, Z has published the analysis, debate, and visions movements need, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. If that work should continue, Z needs your support now.

Number of donors708
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version