Hundreds attend Springfield’s March for our LivesDate: 3/29/2018 SPRINGFIELD – Trevaughn Smith one of the student organizers of the Springfield March for Our Lives on March 24 was jubilant.
Speaking to a group that filled the steps of Springfield City Hall, he said to the loud approval of the marchers, “It all started at the library in Sixteen Acres and look at us now!”
By this writer’s estimate the marchers numbered between 500 and 700 people.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and member of Congress Richard Neal, joined the marchers in a call to address gun violence in reaction to the shooting last month in Parkland FL.
In a meeting with reporters prior to the speaking program of the march, Warren and Neal expressed their frustration with the gridlock on a federal level about solutions for the violence.
“What’s been going on for years now has been a stalemate on guns,” Warren said. Democrats have proposed changes, she explained but Republicans have blocked them.
“Young people throughout the country are taking this into their own hands,” she added.
Neal said, “I have supported every reasonable gun measure for the years I’ve been in Congress. This is the usual effort from the NRA [National Rifle Association] to frighten people about the Second Amendment.”
He then read a list of “common sense things we can all agree on, I hope” that included universal background checks; minimal age requirements for buying a gun; mental health background checks; domestic abusers prohibited from buying a firearm; people banned from air travel can not buy a gun; assault rifles should be banned; bump stocks should be banned; the Centers for Disease Control should be allowed to conduct a study about gun violence in this country
He added the Thompson-King bipartisan measure should be something everyone on Congress should support. The bill “expands the existing background check system to cover all commercial firearm sales, including those at gun shows, over the internet or in classified ads while providing reasonable exceptions for family and friend transfers,” according to Rep. Mike King’s website.
“Reasonable people ought to have a level of conversation about this issue,” Neal said. He stressed no one is trying to take away guns for collectors or erode the Second Amendment.
Warren said the power of the NRA is such that votes on proposals are not allowed to happen “because the NRA calls the shots and that’s not democracy.”
She added the NRA even blocked legislation that would have prohibited gun sales to people on terrorism watch lists.
Warren said there are bills crafted by senators from both parties but explained “we can not get them to the floor.”
Marches such as the one in Springfield “make it harder for Congress to only pay attention to the NRA and ignore the people of this country,” Warren added.
The many signs made by a number of marchers carried their messages of concerns:
• “This isn’t about left or right. It’s about life or death.”
• “High school math: people plus guns equal death.”
• “Bypass NRA political obstacles.”
The student organizers said the march would be the start of an on-going activism and said they were impressed with the number of people who participated in the march.
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