Conceived as a response to incidences of gun violence around the country, specifically the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, the marches have been primarily organized for and by high school students.
Pranav Iyer, a senior and class president at Solon High School, is one of the organizers of the Cleveland march, which currently expects nearly 2,000 attendees. He got involved after helping to plan Solon’s March 14’s National School Walkout. Once he learned of several other schools throughout Northeast Ohio participating in the walkout for gun legislation, he realized a larger statement was possible.
“I reached out to all these class presidents across the area,” Iyer said. “We decided maybe we should do something broader in Cleveland so that not just schools but also community members, parents, teachers, everyone could participate in a downtown march.”
Since the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida, high school students have become the center of the gun control movement, taking on a national platform as they confront senators and NRA officials for their inaction. Iyer says seeing people his age take on the contentious and highly politicized realm of gun safety has galvanized him and his classmates.
“We see the students from Parkland themselves becoming the leaders, taking action. I think that’s inspired students to say ‘if they can do it, I can do the same,'” Iyer said.
Though the recent movement for gun control has been led mostly by teenagers, Iyer acknowledges that translating this into legislative action has been difficult.
“Oftentimes I think as students we find it hard to find our voice just because we’re disenfranchised, we can’t vote,” Iyer said. “That’s why maybe politicians don’t pay attention. We’re not a voter bloc for them.”
With gun control set to become a central topic in the upcoming midterm elections, the political divisions of the topic have become difficult to ignore. However, the march’s organizers have stressed that the march is bipartisan, as its purpose is ultimately to ensure student safety.
To avoid partisanship, Iyer says that potential speakers are being selected based on the criteria that they support the overall goal of the march, rather than viewing it as a campaign stop.
“We really want the message to be about making the schools safer,” Iyer said. “It’s students together regardless of your party belief, we’re coming together under one cause, uniting under one banner. Let’s spread the message.”
More information about how to get involved with the March For Our Lives can be found here. The organizers are also accepting donations through their GoFundMe.
The March for Our Lives rally kicks off at 10 a.m. on Public Square.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2018.
Another party in Public Square then a walk around the block. The following day Scene and the other local msm will pump out tired articles like “Thousands March for ……” Pictures of signs, crowd shots, close-ups of the speakers.
And then next month these people will all get behind another leftist issue then come down to the square to do it again until they get their way. Who needs guns, these liberals are just going to annoy us to death.
Do they realize that people live and work downtown or do they think we just open it up for their ngo organized, purposely divisive “satellite rallies”.
Funded by George Soros. This is not student organized.
Blah, blah, blah…. Protests do nothing….protests are stupid. Yeah, you’re right. They didn’t work for Gandhi, they didn’t work for the Civil Rights movement or the Anti-War movement…and how about those idiots who threw tea into Boston Harbor back in 1773?? Total waste of time!
Roughly 10 percent of the people that attended this “student organized” event were children. The crowd was the regular liberals that go out for every protest. Many of the groups didn’t even change their signs. This time they propped up the few children and filled their mouths with liberal rhetoric and vulgarities.
A few of the selected speakers were brave enough to address the local gun problem in our city.
The Washington DC March was planned well in advance of the February 14th incident.
How did these march planners know there was going to be a school shooting that fit perfectly into their march agenda before they set up the event? They didn’t. This is a conspiracy.
Notice also how the children proppelled to the front of the movement are refusing any solutions to the problem besides banning the guns and repealing the second amendment.