In 2018, protests against gun violence in the United States increased after a series of mass shootings, most notably at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14 that year. An organized protest in the form of a national school walkout occurred on March 14. March for Our Lives was held on March 24. Another major demonstration occurred April 20, 2018.
The anti-gun violence group Never Again MSD, formed and led by survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, [2] held a rally on February 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which was attended by hundreds of students. [3]
The Fort Lauderdale rally was followed by other protests across the country. On February 19, a group of teenagers staged a "lie-in" outside the White House. [4] Hundreds of students marched to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 20. [5] Students also demonstrated at Florida's Capitol. [6] In Kansas, several hundred high school students protested on February 21. [7]
The students from Parkland, Florida began encouraging companies who partner with the NRA—offering perks or discounts to members—to sever ties with the organization. Over a dozen [8] companies dropped their NRA partnership in the days following. [9]
Date | March 14, 2018 |
---|---|
Location | United States |
Type | Gun control advocacy |
Organised by | Women's March Youth [10] |
The Enough! National School Walkout [12] was a walkout planned by organizers of the Students' March, that occurred on March 14, in response to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. The protest had students, parents, and gun control students leaving schools for seventeen minutes (one minute for each person who died during the shooting) starting at 10:00 a.m. in their respective time zone. [13] [14] The protest was held exactly one month after the Stoneman Douglas shooting. [15] [16] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) supported the student's activism. [17]
An estimated 3,000 schools and nearly 1 million students participated in the protest. [20] [21] [22] [23] Thousands of students gathered in Washington, D.C., and observed 17 minutes of silence with their backs turned to the White House. [24]
At Greenbrier High School in Greenbrier, Arkansas three students elected to receive corporal punishment in the form of two paddlings on the thighs for their participation in the walkout. This required parental consent, and was administered the same day. [25] [26]
Nearly 200 U.S. colleges added their names to #NeverAgain Colleges, [27] including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and the University of Florida. [28] The colleges would not penalize high school students who face disciplinary action as a result of participating in a peaceful Never Again MSD protest. [28]
U.S. broadcaster Viacom expressed support for the protests, including executive Shari Redstone making a $500,000 donation to March For Our Lives, and all Viacom U.S. cable networks (including MTV and Nickelodeon) suspending programming for seventeen minutes at a time at 10:00 a.m. in each time zone, in solidarity for the walkouts. The company also planned discussion and acknowledgement of the movement in programming and other output by its channels. [29] [30]
March for Our Lives was a student-led demonstration in support of tighter gun control that took place on March 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C., with over 800 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world. [31] [32] [33] Student organizers from Never Again MSD planned the march in collaboration with the nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety. [34] The event followed the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, which was described by many media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation. [35] [36] [37]
Protesters urged for universal background checks on all gun sales, raising the federal age of gun ownership and possession to the age of 21, closing of the gun show loophole, a restoration of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines in the United States. [38] Turnout was estimated to be between 1.2 and 2 million people in the United States, [39] [40] [41] making it one of the largest protests in American history.
On Tuesday, April 10, 2018, hundreds of students walked out of their Miami high school to protest gun violence after four current or former classmates were shot off campus. The students chanted "no justice, no peace" Tuesday and carried "enough is enough" signs outside Northwestern Senior High School. They staged the protest after the weekend shooting deaths of 17-year-old Kimson Green, a 10th-grader who was about to become a member of the National Honor Society, and 18-year-old Rickey Dixon, a former Northwestern student. Two other current or former classmates were wounded. The shooting happened Sunday at an apartment complex in the Liberty City neighborhood, which is plagued by gun violence. [42] [43]
The National School Walkout [44] occurred nationally on April 20, 2018, which was the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. [45] The movement was founded and organized by Lane Murdock of Ridgefield High School. [46] [47] [48] On the day of the walkout, student demonstrators wore safety orange and departed from over 2600 schools to push for legislative action against gun violence. [49]
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is a public high school in Parkland, Florida, United States. It was established in 1990 and is part of the Broward County Public Schools district. It is named after the writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas and is the only public high school in Parkland, serving almost all of the limits of that city as well as a section of Coral Springs.
Alfonso Calderón Atienzar is a Spanish-American student activist against gun violence. He is a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and a founding member of the Never Again MSD movement.
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Miami suburban town of Parkland, Florida, United States, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. Cruz, a former student at the school, fled the scene on foot by blending in with other students and was arrested without incident approximately one hour and twenty minutes later in nearby Coral Springs. Police and prosecutors investigated "a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior".
X González is an American activist and advocate for gun control. In 2018, they survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, and, in response, co-founded the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD.
Never Again MSD is an American student-led political action committee for gun control that advocates for tighter regulations to prevent gun violence. The organization, also known by the Twitter hashtags #NeverAgain, and #EnoughIsEnough, was formed by a group of twenty students attending Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) at the time of the deadly shooting in 2018, in which seventeen students and staff members were killed by the alleged gunman, Nikolas Cruz, who was a 19-year-old former student of the school and was armed with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle. The organization started on social media as a movement "for survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting, by survivors of the Stoneman Douglas Shooting" using the hashtag #NeverAgain. A main goal of the group was to influence that year's United States mid-term elections, and they embarked on a multi-city bus tour to encourage young people to register to vote.
March for Our Lives (MFOL) is a student-led organization which leads demonstrations in support of gun control legislation. It took place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018, with over 880 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world, and was planned by Never Again MSD in collaboration with the nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety. The event followed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting a month earlier, which was described by several media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation.
Cameron Marley Kasky is an American activist and advocate against gun violence who co-founded the student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group Never Again MSD. He is notable for helping to organize the March for Our Lives nationwide student protest in March 2018. Kasky is a survivor of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Kasky was included in Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People of 2018".
Alexander Blake Wind is an American student activist against gun violence. A survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and a founding member of the Never Again MSD movement, he is a critic of politicians who are supported by the National Rifle Association of America. Wind was one of five Stoneman Douglas students featured on the cover of Time magazine in 2018.
David Miles Hogg is an American gun control activist. He rose to prominence during the 2018 United States gun violence protests as a student survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, helping lead several high-profile protests, marches, and boycotts, including the boycott of The Ingraham Angle. He has also been a target and scapegoat of several conspiracy theories.
Sarah Chadwick is an American activist against gun violence and one of the leaders of the Never Again MSD activist movement.
Jaclyn Corin is an American activist against gun violence. She survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. She is one of the co-founders of March for Our Lives and the organizer of a student protest to Tallahassee, Florida. She has also been a vocal critic of politicians funded by the National Rifle Association.
Lauren Hogg is an American author and activist against gun violence. She survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 and after became a co-founder of March for Our Lives and advocates against gun violence. She is the younger sister of gun control activist and former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student David Hogg. She graduated from MSD High School in 2021, three years after David.
Kyle Kashuv is an American conservative activist. He survived the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and subsequently advocated for gun rights, notably in opposition to his fellow survivors' March for Our Lives movement.
March for Our Lives Portland was a protest held in Portland, Oregon, as part of March for Our Lives, a series of rallies and marches in Washington, D.C., and more than 800 cities across the world on March 24, 2018. Students organized the event, which included a march from the North Park Blocks to Pioneer Courthouse Square where a rally featured speakers, a performance by rock band Portugal. The Man, and a surprise appearance by rapper Black Thought of hip-hop band The Roots. The protest was the city's largest since the January 2017 Women's March on Portland; the Portland Police Bureau estimated a crowd size of 12,000.
Ryan Deitsch is an American student activist against gun violence, and a survivor of the Parkland massacre. He is a founding member of the Never Again MSD movement.
Matthew Bryan Deitsch is an American writer, gun violence prevention advocate and political advisor. Before entering politics, he worked in broadcast media and was a freelance photographer, film director and music producer. After the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in which his siblings witnessed, Deitsch became chief strategist for the March For Our Lives protests and began advocating for gun violence prevention. He is the older brother of activist Ryan Deitsch.
Stand for the Second was a student-led demonstration in support of the United States Second Amendment held on May 2, 2018. The demonstration was in response to the March for Our Lives protest held on March 24, 2018.
The National School Walkout was a national student-led protest on April 20, 2018, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. The walkout was one of many protests against gun violence in the United States that erupted in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting on February 14, 2018.
Samantha Deitsch is an American author and gun control activist who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.
Aalayah Eastmond is an American activist and advocate for gun violence prevention, social justice, and racial equality. After surviving the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Eastmond began her activism during the 2018 United States gun violence protests. She has testified multiple times to the U.S. Congress. Eastmond is an executive council member of Team Enough, a youth-led gun violence prevention organization which is part of the Brady Campaign. Eastmond co-founded Concerned Citizens of DC in the wake of the murder of George Floyd to organize protests supporting social justice issues in Washington, D.C. She supports Black Lives Matter and protests against police brutality.
Updated March 27, 2023Describes inclusion criteria.