They were angry and frustrated. And given the chance to face the lawmakers and others who can make their lives safer, high school students who a week ago were running from gunfire pointedly demanded change Wednesday night from Washington and the National Rifle Association.
Survivors of the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, took center stage at a town hall hosted by CNN as thousands of community members cheered on the young people thrust into the national spotlight by a massacre that killed 17 people.
The students-turned-gun-control advocates and their teachers asked frank questions of Sens. Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson and Rep. Ted Deutch about whether they would support banning certain assault-style rifles and refuse to take money from the NRA.
They also confronted NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, who said the organization feels the system for buying firearms is flawed and too many people who shouldn’t be able to buy guns are getting through the cracks.
The town hall on Wednesday night followed days of sit-ins, walkouts and demonstrations in solidarity with survivors of the massacre.
The shooting reignited the passionate national discussion on gun laws and how to keep communities safe, catalyzing a protest movement led by the young students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Dad’s message to
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed, angrily addressed Rubio, wanting the senator to agree that semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 type used in the shooting were the problem.
“Sen. Rubio, I want to like you. Here’s the problem. … Your comments this week and those of our President have been pathetically weak,” he said to lasting applause and cheers. “Look at me and tell me guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids in the school this week.”
Guttenberg called on the senator to do something about guns, to work with the people affected by the massacre. Rubio, a Republican, replied, “I’m saying that the problems we are facing here today cannot be solved by gun laws alone.”
Student to Rubio: Will you turn down NRA money?
Cameron Kasky, a junior at the school, pressed Rubio to turn down campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association.
Rubio said he supports the Second Amendment but he also stood for school safety. He wouldn’t say he would turn down an NRA contribution.
“The influence of these groups comes not from money,” he said, “You can ask that question and I can say that people buy into my agenda.”
NRA gets heat
National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch told the audience that she thought the confessed school shooter was a monster who should never have been able to get a firearm of any kind.
“I’m not just fighting for my kids. I’m fighting for you. And I’m fighting for you,” she said, looking at the students in the crowd.
While some in the crowd yelled, “You’re a murderer,” Loesch said the system to buy firearms is flawed.
Student Emma Gonzalez, who has been outspoken about her opposition to semiautomatic rifles, asked Loesch what the NRA’s position was on bump stocks and making it more difficult to buy certain weapons.
Loesch replied the NRA is waiting on the Justice Department to make a ruling on bump stocks.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel interrupted Loesch, saying he knew she was standing up for the NRA.
“But you just told this group you were standing up for them,” he said. “You’re not standing up for them until you say I want less weapons.”
Arming teachers?
Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump, who declined to participate in the town hall, suggested at a listening session at the White House that part of the solution to preventing school shootings could be having some armed, trained teachers on campus.
None of the politicians at the town hall were sympathetic to the thought.
Nelson, a Democrat said, “I think it is a terrible idea.”
Rubio and Deutch agreed.
Robert Runcie, the Broward County school system superintendent, told the audience beforehand that teachers should be armed with more money.
Sheriff: ‘You will get it done’
Before the event, Israel fired up the crowd in the arena, saying, “My generation, we did not get it done. You will get it done.”
Runcie told the students at Stoneman Douglas that they have started a movement.
“These are the young people that are going to change the world for the better. And let me tell you, our students are ready for this moment. They have been preparing for this moment,” he said.
Some of the student participants came straight from the state Capitol in Tallahassee after lobbying state lawmakers for tougher restrictions on weapons like the one used to kill their friends and teachers.
Listening session at White House
Trump held a listening session Wednesday afternoon with those affected by some of the nation’s highest-profile deadly school shootings, from Columbine High School to Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
The President pledged to go to work after the meeting ended. “We don’t want others to go through the kind of pain you have gone through. It wouldn’t be right,” he said.
The father of Meadow Pollack, who was killed last week, said he was speaking Wednesday because his daughter couldn’t.
“We as a country failed our children,” Andrew Pollack said.