YFGS Newsletter - August 10, 2024

August 10, 2024 —

Hello and welcome to the second edition of the Youth For Gun Safety newsletter. Per our organization description:

This newsletter is Youth For Gun Safety's effort to spreading awareness about gun violence and gun control efforts regionally, nationally, and internationally. AND This newsletter serves to provide regional, national, and international information on gun violence and gun control efforts. Our hope is that this newsletter serves to inform you on this important topic.

We plan to post this newsletter on a bi-monthly basis to better inform our communities about the gun violence faced by others across the world.

Our new website has also just gone live; if you’d like to keep up with us, please check us out there or on our Instagram.

Thank you so much for your support and, if you have any questions, please email us at this address, or by replying to this email.

NEWS UPDATES:

Demolition of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School:

On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people including students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Six years later, the high school is in the process of demolition. Expected to take a few weeks to complete, the demolition began only a few days ago on Friday, June 14. Several family members of the victims watched as the excavator tore into the top floor of the three-story building. 

“This is one more step in our healing process,” Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was killed at the school, told CNN Friday (CNN, 2024). 

Before the demolition process, the classrooms and buildings were left almost untouched, with the same grotesque and horrific scenes strewn all over the school. Some of the parents of the victims as well as survivors requested private tours, seeing “blood stains in the areas where the victims had been killed, bullet holes puncturing the classrooms, and Valentine’s Day candy still on students’ desks” (CNN, 2024). 

Other schools have opted to demolish the sites of the massacres to decrease the trauma and its reminders experienced by survivors, victims’ families, and the rest of the community. A newly rebuilt school opened to students after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Columbine High School demolished and rebuilt its school library after the shooting that took place in its library, and city officials in Uvalde, Texas even plan to demolish Robb Elementary School. 

Wear Orange Weekend:

This year, from June 5-7, supporters of gun violence prevention participated in Wear Orange Weekend, an event in which participants wear the color orange “to demonstrate our collective power as members of the gun violence prevention movement” (Wear Orange). During Wear Orange Weekend, thousands wear orange to commemorate the 117,345 people who are shot in America each year (Brady).  

The color orange also wasn’t selected at random, it is derived from the tragic story of Hadiya Pendleton. Just one week after marching in President Obama’s second inaugural parade, Hadiya was heartbreakingly shot and killed in Chicago. In her memory, her friends wore the color orange which symbolizes “the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others” (Wear Orange). Nowadays, this tradition carries on through the Wear Orange organization, which organizes Wear Orange Weekend events around the country. To participate, you can enter your zip code on their website and learn which events are closest to you. 

If you’re interested in participating, this event occurs yearly and will take place from June 6-8 next year in 2025!

U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Bump Stocks:

Since March 26, 2019, bump stocks have been banned. A bump stock replaces a regular “gunstock”. They allow the user to fire bullets more rapidly and will enable them to reach almost the same speed as an automatic weapon. This ban was put into place after a gunman released fire in October 2017, which left 58 dead and almost 500 injured. The perpetrator of the Las Vegas shooting was able to release over 1,000 rounds in 11 minutes, with the help of a bump stock. 

Image of bump stock (Axios)

The disastrous event sparked action to be taken, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), banned these devices in 2019. Bump stocks have been banned since, until the Supreme Court overruled the ban on June 14, 2024. The results were 6-3, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote “each trigger depression still only releases one shot” in defense of the overruling” (AP News).

The overturning is both shocking and unsurprising. This ruling demonstrates how the Supreme Court has become more and more lenient towards the right wing. The overruling is just another signal that we need to keep fighting for stricter gun laws to end the gun violence epidemic. 

YFGS UPDATES:

• We are going to start accepting applications to join this motivated group.  

• More workshops will be conducted at schools! Please reach out if you would like for us to come to your school!   

• We will be hosting a workshop at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference on Saturday, October 26th. Stop by if you are interested in meeting with us and joining the cause! We will be at Chief Sealth International High School in Seattle, Washington.  

Thank you,

Youth For Gun Safety