One of thousands at last month’s March for Our Lives against gun violence
Seattle students including kids from Capitol Hill and Central District area high schools are expected to be part of walkouts Friday for an anti-gun violence rally in Seattle’s Occidental Square.
The We Won’t Be Next campaign is seeking to bring attention to gun violence’s effect on youth beyond school shootings:
“The Parkland students’ response to the gun violence that affected their community has shown students across the country, across racial lines, and across socioeconomic barriers that we, as youth, have the ability, duty and right to use our voices to call for an end to the senseless gun violence that plagues our communities,” said Niko Battle, a lead organizer for We Won’t Be Next Seattle. “We Won’t be Next recognizes that there is an epidemic of gun violence that typically goes unnoticed by the media that affects the safety, well-being, and security of youth in our community.”
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The planned walkouts and rally follows last month’s March for Our Lives protest at Cal Anderson Park. Organizers of that event were also cognizant that the problems with gun violence aren’t limited to school shootings. “For the black and brown kids who face this every day but don’t receive national coverage, today when we march, we won’t leave anyone behind,” march co-organizer Rhiannon Rasaretnam told CHS at last month’s event.
The new effort is a call for “common-sense gun safety measures that include banning assault rifles, banning bump stocks nationally, raising the age for all gun purchases from 18 to 21, ensuring school safety without arming teachers, and calling on members of Congress and corporations to stop accepting support from or providing support for the NRA,” organizers say.
Seattle’s We Won’t Be Next demonstration was scheduled to begin at 12:00 PM in Occidental Square. More than thirty schools from across the state are participating in the walk and rally, organizers say.
While I support what these kids are doing, I think it’s a huge mistake to try and connect the gang warfare in with school shootings. Gang warfare will continue on so long as gang culture permeates many communities. Gangs will always celebrate guns, love guns, and treat guns as a tool of the trade no matter how many common sense gun regulations are enacted.
No-snitch, drug use, revenge, cash-worshipping and impulsiveness all ensure that gang warfare will exist in perpetuity. Gun deaths are a bi-product of community failings – not the cause.