Metro Nashville Public Schools and March For Our Lives (MFOL), the anti-gun, New York City-based political action advocacy organization, are politicizing the March 27 Covenant Presbyterian School shootings by encouraging Nashville and Middle Tennessee high school students to participate in two separate anti-gun rallies on Monday.
As The Tennessee Star reported on March 27, three children and three adults were killed by 28-year-old former student Audrey Elizabeth Hale, who identified as transgender, when she forced her way into the school.
The rampage was cut short by Nashville Metro Police Officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, who returned fired upon Hale, killing her.
On Thursday, The Star reported that the Tennessee State Police foiled a riot, largely consisting of local high school students, incited by three Democrat state legislators.
State Reps. Justin Jones (D-Nashville), Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), and Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) encouraged a crowd of more than a thousand protesters to breach the Tennessee House of Representatives chamber floor during a gun control demonstration. Tennessee State Troopers stopped protesters attempting to enter the chamber from the gallery above and the ground floor.
MFOL, founded in the wake of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, has called for a Nashville student walkout to protest gun violence on Monday.
Through their social media channels, the group, fronted by former students of the Florida school, are encouraging students to walk out of class at 10:13 a.m. – the time when Metro Police first received calls of an active shooter at The Covenant Presbyterian School. Students are encouraged to march from their school to the Tennessee State Capitol for a 10:45 a.m. rally.
It’s not drag queens, it’s not books, it’s not Black history, it’s not trans rights— GUNS are KILLING KIDS.
Nashville: JOIN US and #WalkOut of class and to the state capitol to demand gun safety on MONDAY, APRIL 3 at 10:13 AM. Join us: https://t.co/Te2NAp93lj pic.twitter.com/uORoPFj7d4
— March For Our Lives ☮️🟧 (@AMarch4OurLives) March 29, 2023
MFOL, who appeals to prospective members to “join the movement that’s saving lives” is demanding gun safety by calling for a ban of “assault weapons.”
Reportedly slated to appear at Monday’s protest are Manuel Oliver, a father of a Parkland High School shooting victim, and Nashville Vice Mayor Jim Shulman.
“I think it’s time for pressure, and I have total hope in these young generations of Americans that are ready to make things happen. When they want something, they get together. I don’t recommend you fighting them back,” Oliver told WKRN News.
Meanwhile, Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) say they have an alternative for students to voice their concerns about the danger of school shootings with walk-in rallies at all high schools on Monday.
The district is promoting the “walk-in” rallies as being student-led initiatives designed to give any student who wishes to join the ability to discuss their concerns, petition their representatives, and participate in activities meant to honor and remember the victims of The Covenant Presbyterian School shooting and those who have been killed in past mass shootings throughout the country.
“I understand and share the frustration, anger, and fears that many of our students, staff, and families have expressed in recent days over the latest and closest in a long line of school shootings and the lack of meaningful action by lawmakers to address the epidemic of gun violence in our society,” [emphasis added] Dr. Adrienne Battle, director of Metro Schools said in a highly politicized statement.
“Our team has worked closely with student leaders, including our student Board members Abenezer Haile and Alayna Mitchell, to develop a plan of action that would meet the desire of students to voice their concerns while keeping student safety top of mind,” [emphasis added] Battle added.
MNPS is encouraging all students in the district to wear red Monday, which they say is to honor of The Covenant Presbyterian School shooting victims.
On Friday night, in preparation for Monday’s MFOL-sponsored walkout, MNPS high schools reportedly issued a reminder to families via email that “leaving school during the day without following school and district protocols is a violation of our MNPS Code of Conduct. Any student who walks elects to leave campus (AKA “walkout”) will be subject to out-of-school suspension.” If students chose to attend the MFOL march, they were asked to treat the absence as any other and use normal protocol. Students who elect to participate should report directly to the Capitol, not the school first.
According to their website, MFOL is a “courageous youth-led movement dedicated to promoting civic engagement, education, and direct action by youth to eliminate the epidemic of gun violence.”
March for Our Lives spokesman David Hogg told a Boston audience gathered to talk gun control, “I’m feeling some version of how all of us are feeling. Exhausted. Exhausted of this continuing.”
Five years ago, MFOL staged a rally for gun control attended by thousands at Nashville Public Square. The group also organized a rally in June 2022.
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Michael Patrick Leahy is the Editor in Chief of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. TC Weber contributed to this report.
Photo “March for Our Lives Rally” by TheNoxid. CC BY 2.0.
Children should never be allowed to leave school for a field trip sponsored by any political party. Our children should never become political props! Educations scores are the lowest they have ever been and political groups support this by cutting kids time in class to learn so they can be used? Parents should sue the political activist groups.
The Sheep will Bleat and follow orders…All eyes need to be on Cameron Sexton and Randy McNally for entertaining unconstitutional gun confiscation orders in Tennessee. The legislation that should be front and center should be plans to make sure the trans get dealt with before killing more innocent people.
Sooo, following Pimpocrat logic, forks, knives and spoons are to blame for the obesity epidemic.
No wonder a whole generation is growing up to be Pimpocrats…it’s so blinking EASY. NOTHING’S ever your fault.
Apparently fat, lazy and stoopid will get you through life.
Students want a day out of school. They should receive an F in all their classes today. The issue is mental illness. The Convenant female shooter was mentally I’ll and no one turned her in. All the signs of disturbing behavior were there
Still no MANIFESTO from the murdering perp. The Legislature should demand it immediately. Everything should be known about the murder.usually murderer manifesto’s are put out within hours.
Also, the leftist protesters do NOT want children protected like politicians, pro athletes or wealthy entertainers! Why is that?? I went to a Titans game last year and there were many armed police outside and private armed security inside. Their collectivist religion of blaming, vilifying and penalize those who are not responsible is despicable!
Protect the schools and leave the rest of us alone and proceed with Legislation that conforms to the State Constitution!
“The district is promoting the “walk-in” rallies as being student-led initiatives designed to give any student who wishes to join the ability to discuss their concerns, petition their representatives, and participate in activities meant to honor and remember the victims of The Covenant Presbyterian School shooting and those who have been killed in past mass shootings throughout the country.”
What do you think would happen if a group of students who wanted to raise awareness about the NRA’s “School Shield” program asked to “walk in”?
Politics is NOT for the faint of heart. Unlike most Democrats, some Republicans are just ‘squishy’ little creatures (i.e., the D’rats don’t allow ‘squishy’, the D’rats are ruthless). The D’rats may convene their noisy, sometimes violent, little protests in D’rat Nashville, but the VAST majority of the people of Tennessee overwhelmingly support the Republican position on the Second Amendment, and any Republican who waffles on THIS issue will rue the day that he/she ever did so! Republicans MUST take a stand on THIS issue, and STAY there!
Just step back a moment and THINK about what has happened in the Tennessee General Assembly in the last few weeks.
Nineteen Republican Senators in the Tennessee Senate have given pervert Randy McNally a ‘pass’ when they ought to have ‘booted’ his ‘behind’ OUT of their body’s Speakership (at a minimum).
Also, there is some question whether the Tennessee House of Representatives will do anything about the Marxist D’rat thugs who actually ‘took over’ the House chamber last week in an attempt to get their way on the Second Amendment issue which they favor when the vast majority of Tennessee voters overwhelmingly reject the D’rat position.
And now, if House Republicans go ‘wobbly’ on THIS latest political tactic by the Marxist D’rats, HOW DO YOU THINK THAT THE VOTERS WILL VIEW OVERALL TENNESSEE REPUBLICANS IN THE TENNESSEE GENERAL ASSEMBLY?!
As I have said before, Legislative majorities can be lost! (And if you don’t think so, just ask the wishy-washy former Republican members of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia who very quickly had their whole world turned upside down a few years ago, and only now are slowly recovering it—maybe!)
Expel Jones and Johnson from the legislature and have the TBI open an investigation into the Capitol riot. Oh, sorry, Republicans are too cowardly to do what needs to be done.