Remembering Parkland
Today marks one year since the tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman opened fire at 10:17 am at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing fourteen students and three staff members and injuring several others.
The shooting served as a breaking point for many Americans feeling frustrated and helpless with the senseless attacks involving guns that have become heartbreakingly commonplace in our country’s history, beginning with the Columbine massacre in April 1999. Since then, millennials and Gen Z kids have continued to grow up in a generation tainted by mass shootings.
Fed up with the lack of action on the part of legislators surrounding gun control, students who survived the Parkland shootings took matters into their own hands. After participating in a televised CNN town hall, they organized a march on Washington, aptly named the March For Our Lives, that included hundreds of sister marches across the country. Organizers said an estimated 800,000 people attended the march in D.C., more than those who congregated for the 2017 Women’s March.
Activism and action did not stop after the march. MSD students have since met with several members of Congress to discuss appropriate gun control legislation and were also involved in rallying thousands of young people to register to vote in the 2018 midterm elections.
Despite these efforts, America has failed to see a halt to these horrendous massacres. Since Parkland, nearly 350 mass shooting have occurred, Vox reports, which amounts to almost one a day. On Tuesday, The Trace and The Miami Herald dropped a project titled “Since Parkland,” where teen journalists worked to compile a list of 1,200 obituaries of kids who were killed by guns in the one year since Parkland. The project will continue to be updated so long as these agonizing events continue to occur.
Social media has been flooded with posts today sending love to those affected and commemorating the lives lost. “In the year since their friends were killed, the students of Parkland refused to settle for the way things are and marched, organized, and pushed for the way things should be - helping pass meaningful new gun violence laws in states across the country. I'm proud of all of them,” former President Barack Obama said in a tweet. Activist and survivor Cameron Kasky tweeted “To the millions of people who watched the horror unfold from their homes, Thank you for caring. Thank you for telling our story. Thank you for helping us show that Parkland is stronger than anyone who tries to ruin us.”
Events scheduled today in Florida in memory of the victims include a vigil and a dedicated Day of Service and Love per the City of Parkland. The only content present on the March For Our Lives website currently is a message with the date of 2.14.18 that reads “Today and everyday, we honor those taken from us.”
In remembrance and solidarity, here are the names of the seventeen souls lost on that traumatic day:
Alyssa Alhadeff, 14
Scott Beigel, 35
Martin Duque Anguiano, 14
Nicholas Dworet, 17
Aaron Feis, 37
Jamie Guttenberg, 14
Chris Hixon, 49
Luke Hoyer, 15
Cara Loughran, 14
Gina Montalto, 14
Joaquin Oliver, 17
Alaina Petty, 14
Meadow Pollack, 18
Helena Ramsay, 17
Alex Schachter, 14
Carmen Schentrup, 16
Peter Wang, 15