The student-led anti-gun movement will maintain activism through the summer break, say leaders of the movement.
The movement sparked massive walkouts across the country on the nineteenth anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre when seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold gunned down twelve students and a teacher in a shooting rampage before killing themselves.
The protesters demand the enactment of stricter legislation on gun ownership on the state or federal level. Many of the marchers want the gun issue to become at the centre of midterm elections in November.
“We’ve seen these kids take a real leadership role on this issue. Whether they can sustain it remains to be seen,” said Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at the University of California, who is also known as the author of a history of the debate over gun control in the US.
Hundreds of thousands of pro-gun control activists and their supporters took to the streets on March 24 in cities across America.
The best thing about my job is that one day I’m accused of being a shill for the NRA, and the next I’m an anti-gunner in the pockets of Bloomberg and the gun-control organizations. #doingsomethingright https://t.co/C4ttRzCCSi
— Adam Winkler (@adamwinkler) April 21, 2018
In the meantime, media reported out that a student was wounded in the ankle in a shooting on Friday morning at a high school in Ocala, Florida, 225 miles northwest of Parkland. Police said the shooting that took place right as students prepared to take part in nation-wide protest against gun violence, was accidental.