An anti-gun group will host protests in five cities later this month, as part of a nationwide effort to push gun control in the wake of a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
“What we are demanding from our state’s legislators should not be controversial, and will help to prevent preventable deaths in our communities,” said Carson Ferrara, a rising senior at Vanderbilt University and representative of March for Our Lives. “Last year, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a law that allows anyone to carry a loaded gun in public without a permit. He signed it at a weapons manufacturing plant.”
March for Our Lives was founded by David Hogg, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where in 2018 a gunman shot and killed 17 students.
The group will march in cities and states nationwide on June 11, with the main event being hosted in Washington, D.C.
“We’re marching for our lives on June 11th in D.C. and across the nation (300 local marches and counting),” the group’s website says.
The marches in Tennessee will be held in Clarksville, Knoxville, Bristol, Memphis, Jackson, and Nashville.
The Nashville event will be held in Public Square Park.
“I’d like to invite Tennessee’s legislature to pass policies that close the background check loophole, that require anyone who wants to own a gun to take the simple, common-sense step of getting a permit, to raise the legal age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, and to require safe gun storage from gun owners,” he said. “I’d also like to invite Governor Lee to sign those policies in a Tennessee classroom, if he truly does care about our students and keeping them safe.”
Ferrara also claims that mental health issues are not to blame for gun violence in America, but rather a lack of “common-sense gun safety laws.”
March for Our Lives has several lobbying initiatives, including ending the filibuster in order to make it easier for legislators to ram through gun control and other left-wing wish-list laws.
“Health care. Climate. Fair wages. LGBTQ+ rights. Racial justice. Gun violence prevention. Voting rights,” says the group’s website. “Again and again, senators use the filibuster to play political games with our lives, blocking life-saving measures from earning a vote on the Senate floor, and many others from even becoming legislation.”
It also supports universal background checks.
“Despite their promises, leaders in Congress haven’t even passed the most basic common sense laws to save lives, like requiring background checks for every firearm sale, a measure supported by over 90 percent of Americans. We’re calling on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to stop talking and start acting.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Gun Protest” by March for Our Lives.
What’s this about the Governor tossing out gifts from families of slain victims from the Uvalde shooting? This is shows extreme disrespect by Governor Lee towards the VICTIMS of the Uvalde mass shooting and belies any claim of his for supporting victims’ rights and for “law’n’order”. Let’s expose Lee for the fraud he is. He only cares about the perpetrator of this mass killing and of the incompetent police officers who took their sweet time in apprehending the shooter. SHAME on Lee!
William:
Can you post a link to that issue. That would be very disrespectful.
Thanks,
Steve
What are you taking about?
This bunch has bought the lies.
Ferrara also claims that mental health issues are not to blame for gun violence in America, but rather a lack of “common-sense gun safety laws.”
That is a truly incorrect statement. The number of responsible gun owners in America far out weights the minute number of killings committed with firearms.
While universal background checks (UBCs) sounds like a good idea there are two issues. One, criminals won’t pay any attention to the law because THEY ARE CRIMINALS. And the most glaring problem with UBCs is that there is no way to enforce the law without knowing who the rightful owner of every firearm is…..and the only way to know that is to try and force mandatory firearms registration. I’m pretty sure the majority of gun owners in America will ignore that.
End the filibuster? That is such a bad idea that you would have to not be able to see beyond the end of your nose want that to happen. As soon as the Republicans regain control of the government, well you can imagine what would happen. It exists as needed tool to make sure one party or the other does not take control of the Nation.
There are proposals being bantered around that I am not against, but there is a reason millions of global citizens want to live here. America is the most free nation on earth, and that is because of the Constitution and the rights it grants law abiding citizens. Taking away a persons right to own firearms and use them for personal defense (sorry, that includes AR-15 platform firearms) will begin to erode these freedoms with the resulting increase in government tyranny. You might like having the government make all your decisions for you but I’m pretty sure that’s not the majority view.