#March for our Lives

 #March for our Lives

Hi! In the last days I concentrated my research on the #March for our lives movement.

As these movement is pretty unknown I will focus todays post  on a general explanation of what #March for our lives is and how it started.

In 2018 a gunman walked into Douglas high school parkland, USA. He killed 17 people in total. Sadly that happens way to often in the US. But the student survivors this time acted differently than normally. Instead of thoughts and prayers they demanded actions from the government and didn’t let themselves be silenced and their dead classmates be forgotten. They promoted #neveragain and began a political campaign and social movement known as march for our lives.

For a general overview America  has 4,4% of the world population but 42% of all worlds guns and 31% of worlds mass shooters are American. Normally what happens after mass  shootings is a  brief period of mourning and after that all movements for stricter gun control are forgotten or being ignored. The NRA Americas gun lobby is just to powerfull. But after the Parkland shooting something different happened .  The Students publicly called out the NRA’s influence on national politics They   publicly shamed the leaders they considered responsible for the nation’s lax gun laws. Their voices went viral.

The main student activist had no Twitter account before the shooting—11 days later she managed to have more followers than the NRA. They unitedly and loudly over social media and traditional media forms called for specific changes like a renewed assault-weapons ban, universal background checks and digitized guns also known as ownership records.

The Students managed to paint the NRA and their allies as the mortal enemies of the approximately 50 million schoolkids growing up in “the mass-shooting generation.” On March 14 2018 nearly a million kids across the country left class for the National School Walkout to protest against school shootings. The support for stronger gun regulations spiked to 68% after the shooting, up from 60% last. Public support for the NRA fell down to 37%(now viewed more – than +) companies went against the NRA, and Florida passed  a few harder gun bils.

There quotes are quite similar to the one from Fridays for future. Quote:  “We’re going to show these politicians that we’re coming for them,”, “The world failed us, “ we’re here to make a new one that’s going to be easier on the next generation. If you’re against that, then get out.”

This movement is slightly different than the ones before. The children impacted in the shooting were mostly nearly adults and had a strong opinion on these things. They were able to give all the kids affected by school shootings a voice no matter where they are from. Fact is that the douglas high school got much attention because it was considered a  good situated school  “I recognize that Parkland received more attention because of its affluence," Jaclyn Corin, a survivor of the Parkland shooting. "But we share this stage today and forever with those communities who have always stared down the barrel of a gun." During their protests on 24 march they gave many students from all over America a voice whose story’s didn’t got recognised simply because they came from poorer or black communities. Different movements connected under ‘March for our lives  to be more powerful together and to really represent victims from all backgrounds.

But their weapons wasn’t these marches . Why they got so prominent is because of social media. They  managed to connect many people with the same ideas and rose an enormous demonstration over online activism . of course for that they needed financing and  they gained lots of help: raised more than $4 million from small donors on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe and  a couple million more from celebrities The funds made the March 24 rally possible, paying for supplies, equipment and coordination of the massive event. The gun-reform advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety gave out more than $1 million in grants to local organizers planning sibling marches around the country, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is sending busloads of kids to Washington, D.C.  for the march and the list goes on.

The march had three primary demands:

Pass a law to ban the assault weapons;

Stop the sale of high-capacity magazines;

Implement laws that require background checks on all gun purchases, including online and at gun shows.

They wont have immediate actions from the congress but they can have influence in the future as they are working on changing peoples mind for stricter gun laws. All of this was possible because of clever and successful online activism

Thank you for reading this!