Page 9 - Demo

“If you don’t make your voices heard in the
account, interacting with almost a million real world nothing will followers. He already published a New
York Times Best Seller with his younger
sister, Lauren Hogg, #NeverAgain: A change.” - David Hogg New Generation Draws the Line. You
rkland
might say, how are Twitter posts and a
book, an example of change? Change
has happened in 25 states across the
country, there have been 50 new laws
passed restricting access to guns since last February.
In the state of Florida, only 3 weeks after Parkland, the young voices attracted the attention of lawmakers, with Rick Scott signing the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act. Some of the highlights from that bill are raising the age to purchase a gun, banning bump stocks (devices that attach to rifles that can make it easier to fire a weapon faster), and it also allocated 300 million dollars for school safety initiatives. At Edgewood, our school has been affected by these changes, restricting access points in case of an emergency. We now have the parking lot gate which has a call-box installed in front of the gate, and the front office system. Brevard County as a whole has spent $5,746,541.78 in total for access technology and fencing. Edgewood has not only been affected by Parkland because of the new security systems, the shooting was close to home in our own state, so remembering the students at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas was very personal. One of the events organized in response to the shooting was the National School Walkout, which Edgewood participated in, creating posters in honor of the victims and to share their opinions about the future of gun reform.
While tremendous action has been taken, there is still work to be done. Even after Parkland, school shootings were still being covered in the news, and eventually being forgotten about. In Texas, at Santa Fe High School, 10 lives were taken and 10 were wounded. Even though the Parkland students vowed they would be the last mass shooting, they now grieve over Santa Fe which was the 22nd school shooting in 2018.
Their work is far from over, in fact, they wrote to Twitter, “This is only the beginning of our global movement” after receiving the 2018 International Children’s Peace Prize in November. The Parkland students took a tragedy and turned
it into peaceful campaign with
a
powerful message, and while we look ahead to the future they would not want us to forget the 17 lives that were lost. Alyssa Alhadeff, Beigel, Martin Duque Anguiano, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jamie Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, and Peter Wang. Three were influential coaches at the school, and the other 14 were students with stories that ended too soon. As we move forward into the future to prevent these tragedies, we cannot forget the past, the 17 lives that sparked the
Scott
change in the first place.
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