"Congress is now seeing just a small amount of what American school children have gone through for decades with active shooter drills and shootings enabled by their inaction."
That's what David Hogg, a 2018 Parkland school shooting survivor and gun safety activist, tweeted on the day the U.S. Capitol Building was stormed by pro-Trump terrorists, many of them armed and ready to harm, kidnap, or assasinate members of Congress.
Every single one of these representatives was protected and saved. But what about the school children who, thus far, they have failed to protect and save through meaningful policies and gun safety laws? Instead, our nation's kids are routinely put through active shooter drills, learning how to save themselves.
Sign the petition if you want to see Congress introduce legislation to mandate background checks on all gun sales and ban the manufacture, purchase and importation of assault weapons.
Barricade classroom doors with desks and chairs. Identify and remember the best hiding places. Brainstorm and memorize what escape routes to use. Learn how to impede, delay, or even disarm an attacker. Along with history, science, math, and reading lessons, these are the lessons kids in the U.S. are learning. And while there is no research to indicate that this horrific training does anything to save lives, we are seeing signs of the trauma they can leave kids with.
Between 2015 and 2019, mass shootings (defined here as killing four or more people) occurred on average once every 47 days. And yet, at the federal level, the last time a major gun safety law was passed was 1994 -- and that was allowed to expire 10 years later.
Instead of protecting school children and the entire public, the federal government has put its efforts into shielding gun manufacturers from blame or accountability, along with bolstering any and all interpretations of the Second Amendment that allow widespread and indiscriminate gun ownership. Why is this country intent on loving guns more than people?
Joe Biden's website reads: "Federal law prevents hunters from hunting migratory game birds with more than three shells in their shotgun. That means our federal law does more to protect ducks than children." We finally have a president that wants to drastically reduce gun violence in America. Do we have a Congress that will work towards that goal too?
Sign the petition and demand that Congress introduces legislation to fight gun violence in the U.S. including universal background checks for all firearms sales and a total ban on assault weapons!
