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In the days following the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., the questions came fast and furiously: What can be done to fortify school buildings around the country? And would such efforts work?

Some believe that bolstering the physical security of schools is a key step in deterring mass shooters. That's led the business of securing schools to grow, by some estimates, into a multi-billion industry. But slowing down or even stopping a shooter isn't as simple as adding locks or bullet-proof glass.

School-based mass shootings remain relatively rare, academics insist, so there is scant evidence that traditional methods of "hardening" school buildings, such as metal detectors and cameras, are effective at preventing attacks. Even the best recommendations for improving building security can probably do only so much to thwart a gunman on a rampage, they add.

"One of the difficult things about school design in relating and reacting to the mass shootings in the news is that all of them are different, and you can't account for everything that may happen," said Brian Minnich, project manager at Baltimore-based GWWO, Inc./Architects and a member of the American Institute of Architects' Committee on Architecture for Education. "A lot times we're just reacting to the past and not to potentials in the future."

Experts in construction, gun violence, and school safety say that with each mass shooting, they are learning more about what measures are most effective and hope that body of research will guide them in the years to come.

But that's still a long way off.

In a comprehensive analysis on the subject,the RAND Corporation led a 2016 study backed by the US Department of Justice that looked at a wide range of steps schools have taken to try to bolster security, including locks and alarms, barricades, video surveillance, and social media monitoring.

The results were not encouraging.

"We were really surprised about how little evidence of efficacy there was," said Heather Schwartz, a policy researcher who headed up the study for the think tank. "We were eager to find someone with evidence of effectiveness, and we just did not find that."

"The field is in desperate need of more evidence on what works," her report concluded.

Better research may be on the horizon. In 2014, the Justice Department launched the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, with a $75 million congressional appropriation.

In the meantime, many schools rely on two reports on security measures - one from the Department of Homeland Security, the other from the National Institute of Building Sciences - that outline what are considered best practices for securing schools.

One of the main recommendations in those guides is to establish secure entries. The percentage of public schools reporting that they controlled access to their buildings - such as with locks or screened admittance - increased from 75 percent in the 1999-2000 academic year to 93 percent in 2013-14, figures tracked by the federal Education Department show.

But even those measures, while helpful in securing schools in the day to day, may do little to stop or slow down a determined mass shooter.

"Once you have a motivated offender who's willing to shoot up a school and maybe kill themselves or lose their own life, it's extremely difficult to defend against that," said Eric Madfis, associate professor and degree chair of criminal justice at the University of Washington Tacoma.

It's also important that schools not be locked so tight that students can't quickly evacuate in the event of any emergency, be it a shooter or a fire.

Metal detectors and cameras, too, can seem like smart preventive measures at first blush. But security industry executives say they can be costly to buy and keep properly staffed, and they're unwelcoming to students.

Metal detectors can create lines and delay students from getting to class, while research has failed to show clear evidence that they reduce violent behavior among students. And experts said they would not expect a mass shooter to be deterred or slowed by metal detectors. That may explain why the percentage of schools that reported using random metal detector checks decreased from 7 percent in 1999-2000 to 4 percent in 2013-14, federal statistics show.

Cameras, too, raise doubts. To be effective in a fast-moving active shooter situation, they must be constantly monitored, so a security officer or police personnel can react quickly.

"They're only effective if someone is sitting there staring at a computer screen," said Minnich, of the American Institute of Architects.

Schools have to balance desires for physical protection against such relatively rare events with other serious considerations, including cost and maintaining an environment that doesn't frighten students or detract from their ability to learn.

"We can't design them like bunkers or tanks," Minnich said. "We still need to make sure we're designing schools as places of education."

One building many experts touted as a model for incorporating the most highly recommended security elements is the new Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The old building was torn down after the December 2012 massacre at the school and local officials there took pains to study available research and seek expert guidance in designing a new building that helped the community heal and feel secure but not in a way that was overwhelming.

The school features one main, closely monitored entrance where students and visitors can get into the building, but only with permission. There's strategic use of bullet-resistant glass and other materials on certain windows. Classroom doors also lock from the inside, while numbers on the outside of the building indicate to first responders where certain rooms are, and landscaping elements are designed to protect the building.

The building's architect was hesitant to go into many specifics, citing safety concerns.

Few of the new measures are noticeable. They are cleverly hidden so the building isn't uninviting or frightening to students, said Bob Mitchell, architect and chairman of Newtown's Public Building & Site Commission, which helped oversee that project.

"When we had the first public walk-throughs [for parents and teachers], some of them were very concerned that we didn't have enough security," Mitchell recalled. "It was so subtle, they didn't see it."

He said there can be a fine line. Some schools in other parts of the country have gone too far, installing high visibility security measures. He encouraged schools to be creative, judicious, and thoughtful in how to shore up their buildings.

Ultimately, "You can't guard against everything," Mitchell said. "It's impossible."

Even as the new Sandy Hook Elementary School is considered a model for school safety, it's still in some ways a work in progress. Mitchell said that fine-tuning continues as officials pay close attention to evolving best practices and lessons learned from other school shootings.

"The end product is this is a school, not a fortress."

Matt Rocheleau can be reached at matthew.rocheleau@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mrochele.

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How do we make our schools safer? It's not as simple as cameras and locks - The Boston Globe

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In the days following the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., the questions came fast and furiously: What can be done to fortify school buildings around the country? And would such efforts work? Some believe that bolstering the physical security of schools is a key step in deterring mass shooters.

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Schools rethink building designs to protect students and teachers

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Schools rethink building designs to protect students and teachers

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The mass shooting at a South Florida high school has revived conversations around how to make schools safer for students and teachers alike.

The gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, killed 17 people and injured many more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Cruz's attack on his former high school exposed the ways in which certain security measures can fail short.

He managed to get onto the school's campus because the gates surrounding the campus were open to let school buses in ahead of dismissal. He pulled the school's fire alarm, prompting students and teachers to begin exiting the building. The fire alarm prevented some doors from locking once the Code Red active shooter warning was issued.

And in at least one classroom, the door's lock allegedly didn't keep students safe as Cruz managed to break through the door's glass and shoot into the classroom, striking at least two students.

Amid many school shootings over the past couple of decades, school districts are exploring new ways to make school building designs safer for students and teachers. And given a situation like that in South Florida this week, some have questioned whether defensive measures like these are effective at all in curbing mass shootings.
Don't miss: FBI says it didn't investigate tip that Florida shooter wanted to kill people
For architects, the challenge is balancing the need for additional security with design principles that foster a more nurturing educational environment for students. As architect Jim French explained, designers could apply the design methods used to keep prisons secure to schools, but that would hamper the experience for children. "Everything that goes on in the design of prison facilities is not good for educational facilities," said French, who is a senior principal and leader of the Global K-12 Studio at architectural firm DLR Group. "We're trying to create a more transparent, open environment."
Build the school on raised ground
Here are some of the methods public officials and architects are using to make school buildings safer:

One of the innovative features of the design for the new Sandy Hook campus was its landscaping. The school itself was built on raised ground, so that school employees could view people making their way to the campus more easily.

Additionally, the architects used existing wetlands and ponds to guide where parking lots and student drop-off zones were placed. That way, visitors were funneled to specific paths. People entering the campus have to go over foot bridges that can be locked down and two sets of doors with security controls.
Read more: Layers of zoning and locked doors Why terrified Florida students live-streamed their high school's mass shooting
But even simpler landscaping can make a difference. Breaking up a large field with large bushes and trees makes it more difficult for a would-be gunman to approach a school quickly, giving administrators more time to spot them out and react.
Install safe rooms
School entrances should function more like banks. Hallways and entrances are being designed so teachers can easily spot who is moving around a school. Additionally, they should be organized such that they can be locked or closed off if needed, said Jim Childress, principal at Connecticut-based architectural firm Centerbrook Architects.

"There should be layers of zoning," he said. "Even if the intruder gets past the front entrance and students can take shelter in different areas, so the intruder has a hard time moving through the school itself.

When an active shooter is on a school campus, it's important for teachers and students to have an impenetrable refuge to escape to. More schools, French said, are now being designed with safe rooms. The rooms can be locked from the inside and are often made of concrete so that bullets cannot penetrate them even if fired by an automatic weapon.
Also see: Embassy-standard fences and walls People are walking into glass at the new Apple headquarters
These rooms are designed to serve multiple purposes. For instance, schools in Oklahoma have been equipped with rooms designed as tornado shelters that can also function as a safe room in an active-shooter situation.
Foolproof alarm systems
On a normal school day, these rooms are also given special uses. "They end up being more focused spaces for group work," French said.

Fences and walls around a school can be an eyesore if not designed with aesthetics, which French said may dissuade school districts from exploring them as safety feature. But the bigger issue here is the cost: if the outer perimeter is staffed by an armed guard, it can also be an expensive once their salary is taken into account. French said he has designed Jewish day schools with these features to address concerns of terrorist attacks.
Bulletproof glass
But from a safety perspective, it's the most effective method out there, Childress said. "It's like an embassy," he said. "That's the safest thing you can do."

Cases like the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school show how it's especially important to have a single main entrance that is monitored by administrators. Ideally this would be the only door to the school, but if more exit points are needed for fire safety purposes, those should be alarmed and only openable from the inside, French said.

Newer alarm systems allow administrators to be warned before the school is to verify whether an alarm is indicating a real fire or if it was pulled as a prank (or more nefarious purposes.)

Glass windows can make classrooms vulnerable in an active shooter situation. But students and teachers won't always have the time to move to a safe room. Consequently, some schools - including the new Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn. - have invested in bulletproof glass or other secure options for windows.

But there's a drawback, Childress said. "It's really expensive," he said. Bullet-resistant glass can cost anywhere from $25 to more than $100 per square foot depending on the size and type of material used, according to bulletproof product retailer Bulldog Direct Protective Systems. Comparatively, standard single-pane glass can cost as little as $3 per square foot, according to home renovations website HomeAdvisor.

"I don't know any public schools that could afford that, so it becomes society's question," Childress said.

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Schools rethink building design to protect students from mass shooters

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The mass shooting at a South Florida high school has revived conversations around how to make schools safer for students and teachers alike. The gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, killed 17 people and injured many more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

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Iowa mom takes action to make classrooms safer

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Iowa mom takes action to make classrooms safer

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DES MOINES - Melissa Mahon felt the same sick pang in the pit of her stomach Thursday morning many of America's parents felt.

They sent their kids to school - dropped them off, or watched as they climbed onto a school bus or backed out of the driveway - with an extra twinge of dread about what the day might hold for them.

Wednesday's massacre of at least 17 students and adults at a school in Parkland, Fla., shook the nation yet again. The latest gruesome body count of kids came on the heels of so many mass shootings that we lose count - until a story in our Facebook feed reminds us.

Mahon, who lives in Keosauqua, a town of fewer than 1,000 in southeast Iowa, is the mother of three young children: preschool, kindergarten and first grade. Her thoughts were heavy that morning at the bus stop.

No fewer than four school evacuations this week in Iowa only helped feed everyone's collective paranoia.

So Mahon and a gaggle of friends and fellow moms began commiserating at the bus stop.

They continued over Facebook Messenger.

"So this school shooting has me so freaked out," wrote Breanne McEntee. "I think we need to start talking again about buying/requiring every classroom have 'The Sleeve.' ... Maybe we can do a fundraiser or something? Ideas?"

McEntee was referring to a device manufactured by Fighting Chance Solutions in Muscatine.

About a year ago, another mom, Nasseem Hesler, who is also Keosauqua's mayor, noticed an ad for a similar device on her Facebook feed, probably because the Facebook software picked up on her time spent in the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Hesler mentioned it to friends and school officials.

These gadgets fit over the arm mechanism of a classroom door to secure it from the inside and prevent it from opening. The theory is that even a student would be able to quickly barricade the door if a shooter lurked just down the hallway.

This time, the cumulative anxiety - a buildup after last year's mass shootings at a country music concert in Las Vegas and a Baptist church in Texas - rallied these self-described "mama bears" into action.

"We're tired of it," Mahon said. "It's like, OK, nobody's going to do anything about this: Our government, our state government, our national government.

"We're the moms, and these are our kids. What can we do?"

"We're tired of it. It's like, OK, nobody's going to do anything about this: Our government, our state government, our national government. We're the moms, and these are our kids. What can we do?"
Melissa Mahon
Instead of waiting until the next school board meeting, they acted. They began to refine McEntee's idea to help secure every classroom in the small district - about 50 rooms total.

They added the PTO president to the thread. They reached out to school administrators.

Principal Chuck Banks already was familiar with the devices. While nothing is a sure preventative, Barnes considers them a valid deterrent to improve the chances that students might be defended or given enough time to escape.

Banks has worked in the district since 2000, and this is his ninth year as principal. He has lived through the transition into our modern era of school lockdowns and only one accessible entrance where strangers must buzz in.

He helped guide his teachers through the training to be certified in ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) that helps students systematically flee a scene, rather than cower beneath their desks and wait to be slaughtered.

So Banks helped the moms estimate that about $100 per classroom would cover devices to secure the doors, as well as fill a bucket with other emergency supplies (50 rooms x $100 = $5,000).

The moms began by donating money themselves to cover their own children's classrooms.

They reached out fellow parents and local business owners.

By 2 p.m. they had raised $2,500.

By 3 p.m. they reached $4,000.

By the end of the day they hit their $5,000 goal, spread among dozens of parents and businesses.

'It's just completely scary'

Mahon is a nurse and anesthetist based at the local hospital. She and her husband moved from Orlando in 2012 to raise their family in what they deemed a safer community.

She worked at a hospital in Florida where one of her doctors was gunned down by a patient who ambushed him in the parking garage.

She got used to rerouting her drive home because the road had been blocked as police responded to an active shooter.

But Mahon today is among of a growing number who recognize these mass shootings as an American disease that is not confined to certain regions or neighborhoods.

"It just doesn't matter anymore if it's city or it's rural or urban," she said. "It's happening everywhere. And it's going to infiltrate every school. It's just completely scary."

Mahon also can't imagine how a modern teacher copes with the responsibility of students who must not only be educated but defended to the death. As a society, we certainly don't compensate teachers at any sort of rate to qualify as combat pay.

"It just doesn't matter anymore if it's city or it's rural or urban. It's happening everywhere. And it's going to infiltrate every school. It's just completely scary."
Melissa Mahon
"I tell people all the time I've got 386 kids," Banks said. "I've two daughters, but 386 kids in that building."

The fact that some of his parents were "willing to do anything they can to help protect those kids" overwhelmed him with gratitude.

"It kind of makes you sad at the same time that we have to have that discussion," Banks added. "But it does give you a little bit more relief knowing that we're just doing one more thing to possibly help those kids."

There has been "no credible threat" to his district during his tenure, Banks said. But like all the unnerved parents, he doesn't hold his breath.

Parkland already had an armed officer on hand. Many of us recoil at all the suggestions to fill our schools with even more guns and militarize the hallways.

We could staff a small army and dwarf what we spend on football teams and still not do justice for our kids.

But at this point, it's easy to understand why Mahon is more worried that her kids should be prepared to respond to an active shooter, rather than a fire.

"How do you drill for something like that," she wondered, "and explain that to them when you want them to retain their innocence?"

These Keosauqua parents, a mix of liberals and conservatives, clearly have been riled by a tragedy 1,400 miles away. They also felt empowered by their successful one-day fundraiser.

But what now? What next?

Many of these moms already were politically active, regularly phoning their state representative or senator.

Even as she helped raise funds, Mahon monitored the progress of the "Constitutional Carry" pro-gun bill that she opposed and that stalled Thursday in the Iowa Senate.

Some Americans want a ban on "bump stocks" (to make semi-automatic rifles fire faster) or other gun-control measures. Banks cited dwindling options for mental health care in southeast Iowa.

Some Iowans on Thursday picketed Brownells in Grinnell, the firearms-maker whose CEO also is president of the National Rifle Association.

"We all feel helpless," Hesler said, "and we all feel like we're just praying every day when you send your kid to school that nothing bad with happen."

This is the point we've reached in America: Parents are so disturbed that they're pooling funds not to buy books but to help defend their kids and classrooms from gunfire.

Maybe this modest $5,000 in southeast Iowa is a sign that we're ready not only to recoil in horror at these slayings but to reach consensus on legitimate solutions.

Because nobody wants to be the parent who doesn't realize one morning that they just said a casual goodbye to the next victim of a mass shooting.
Follow Kyle Munson on Twitter: @KyleMunson
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Sick of school shootings, these Iowa moms took action to make their kids' classrooms safe

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CLOSE DES MOINES - Melissa Mahon felt the same sick pang in the pit of her stomach Thursday morning many of America's parents felt. They sent their kids to school - dropped them off, or watched as they climbed onto a school bus or backed out of the driveway - with an extra twinge of dread about what the day might hold for them.

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After Parkland, there have been many calls to make schools a "harder target" - for example, by arming teachers. But there's a decent amount of research out there on what actually makes schools safer, and most of it doesn't point to more guns.

On the Friday after the deadly shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Matthew Mayer, a professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, got an email during a faculty meeting.

The email was from Shane Jimerson, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Both specialize in the study of school violence.

That email led to nearly two weeks of long days, Mayer says, for some of the leading experts in the field. On conference calls and in Google docs they shaped a concise, eight-point "Call for Action To Prevent Gun Violence In The United States of America."

About 200 universities, national education and mental health groups, school districts, and more than 2,300 individual experts have signed on to support this document in the weeks since.

Their topline message: Don't harden schools. Make them softer, by improving social and emotional health.

"If we're really talking about prevention, my perspective is that we should go for the public health approach," says Ron Avi Astor at the University of Southern California, who also helped draft the plan.

A public health approach to disease means, instead of waiting for people to be rushed to emergency rooms with heart attacks or the flu, you go into the community: with vaccinations, screenings, fruits and vegetables, walking trails and exercise coaches. You screen and regulate environmental hazards, like a nearby polluting factory. You keep watch on reported cases of illness, to stop a new outbreak in its tracks.

A public health approach to school shootings, Astor explains, would be much along the same lines.

Instead of waiting for people to, again, be rushed into emergency rooms, you go into the community with preventive resources. You do your best to lower the background levels of bullying and discrimination. You track the data and perform what is called "threat assessments" on potential risks.

And, these experts say, you remove the major "environmental hazard" that contributes to gun violence: the guns. The eight-point plan calls for universal background checks, a ban on assault-style weapons, and something called Gun Violence Protection Orders: a type of emergency order that would allow police to seize a gun when there is an imminent threat.

What sets this call to action apart from other policy proposals is not gun control, however, but the research-based approach to violence prevention and response. This is a long haul, say the experts, not a quick fix.

"No matter what you try to do by just hardening the target, we've learned that having the armed officers isn't necessarily going to stop it," says Matthew Mayer at Rutgers. "Having the metal detector or the locked doors isn't going to stop it. The hard work is a lot more effort. You'd better start thinking in a more comprehensive manner about prevention instead of reacting."
Prevention: The first step
School climate may sound fuzzy or abstract. It means the quality of relationships among the students and the adults in a school. It's affected by the school's approach to discipline and behavior, the availability of professionals like counselors and social workers, as well as any social-emotional curriculum taught in the classroom.

School climate, in turn, affects students' mental and emotional health and academic success. And research by Astor and others has consistently found key factors that can make schools safer: cultivate social and emotional health, connect to community resources and respond, particularly, to troubled students.

Why does this matter? Well, for one thing, the very kids who bring weapons to school are more likely to report being bullied or threatened themselves. They may be fearful of gang violence and feel a need to protect themselves on the way back and forth to school.

Or, they may be individually ostracized and aggrieved. This is true not just in the United States, says Astor, but in "Kosovo, Canada, Chile, Israel, the kids who bring weapons to school are reporting tons of victimization."

So, if you devote resources to shutting down bullying, discrimination and harassment, there is a chance to de-escalate conflict before it starts.

And research shows that school climate measures really work. In fact, there has been a steady downward trend in bullying and harassment over the past decade, which Catherine Bradshaw at the University of Virginia attributes in part to evidence-based social and emotional measures.
The witnesses
There is a second reason a better school climate can cut down on violence. It's what Astor refers to as the role of the witness.

He again cites the example of California, which does a comprehensive annual survey. There, 20 to 30 percent of students above the elementary level consistently report seeing a weapon of some kind at school at least once during the year. That's conservatively more than half a million students, just in that one state.

Moreover, based on the survey, at least 125,000 of these students in California were actually threatened or injured by a weapon on school grounds. This includes things like knives and nunchuks as well as guns.

But what happens next?

If that witness, or that victim, has a strong relationship with an adult, they are more likely to report being menaced by a weapon. Whereas, if there is what Astor calls a "no snitching culture" in the school, or the witness fears for their safety, nothing will be done.

He says he's not urging schools to punish or expel the kid who brought the weapon, but, instead, to use "education as an intervention."

This approach is applicable not only for mass shootings, he says, but for violence that arises from disputes between students or when gang violence in the community spills onto school grounds.

And, he says preventing gun violence also means looking at suicide. Suicide is just behind homicide as a leading cause of death for teenagers. When a weapon comes to school, self-harm may be the plan, and a school-climate approach addresses that threat as well.

The researchers' policy plan calls for assessing school climate nationwide; reducing "exclusionary practices" like suspension and expulsion; maintaining physically and emotionally safe schools; and staffing up with specialists like counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, both in the school and in the community.
Emergency mode
While school climate is an ongoing background effort, the public health approach has an emergency mode when it comes to violence. It kicks in when someone does report a person bringing a weapon to school or talking about violence. It's called a "threat assessment."

After the Columbine shooting in 1999, the FBI and the Secret Service each conducted studies of school shootings and shared their knowledge with the nation's educators. They found that there was no one "profile" of a school shooter. But, almost all students who committed homicide had told someone of their intentions.

So, the two law enforcement agencies recommended that schools copy what the Secret Service does when someone makes a threat on a government official. Threat assessment has been required by law in Virginia's schools since 2013, and adopted in many other places.

A threat assessment team consists of the principal, school counselor, school psychologist and a school-based police officer. They talk to the people involved and any witnesses. They try to figure out if the threat is serious: Is it specific? Is there a detailed plan? Is there a weapon?

In a school, the next steps include notifying parents, taking steps to protect victims, and referrals to mental health and law enforcement if appropriate.

Threat assessments are not a fail-safe. A local ABC affiliate in Florida did report, based on school records, that a threat assessment was ordered for Parkland shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, based on an incident that happened in January 2017, a year before the shooting.

But Dewey Cornell at the University of Virginia, another author of the Call to Action, says researchers have gathered good evidence to support the technique, when implemented fully as in Virginia. Among the positive impacts, he says, are "reduced suspensions and reduced bullying, students and teachers reporting that they feel safer, and students reporting a greater willingness to report threats of violence."

His research also shows that less than 1 percent of threats are ever carried out.

The researchers are hopeful that their Call to Action will break through the noise. But they've been here before, Mayer says. A group of his colleagues wrote something similar in 2012 after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and after a group of school shootings in 2006. Mayer hopes, this time, people will be paying attention.

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Here's How To Prevent The Next School Shooting, Experts Say

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After Parkland, there have been many calls to make schools a "harder target" - for example, by arming teachers. But there's a decent amount of research out there on what actually makes schools safer, and most of it doesn't point to more guns.

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There are ways to make schools safer and teachers stronger-but they don't involve guns | Brookings

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There are many things we can do to make our schools safer, but arming teachers isn't one of them.

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Parkland Activists Inspire Newtown Teens to Join Gun-Control Movement

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Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have inspired young people across the U.S. with their social-media-savvy activism against gun violence. Their work has particularly resonated in Newtown, Conn., a community overshadowed by a similar tragedy.

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Image via Lane Murdock

When 13 people lost their lives at the hands of two teenage gunmen at Columbine High School in 1999, 16-year-old Lane Murdock wasn't even a spec on the global population radar. Now, 19 years later, the Connecticut high school sophomore has organized and executed a 50-state, day-long student walkout with one mission: end mass gun violence, and turn up civic engagement among young people along the way.

"I was done with being powerless. I was tired of watching decision being made by the older generation hurting you people who never agreed to these conditions," Murdock told VICE Impact. "And I think for me, it was just the awareness that I was desensitized and the country was desensitized."

Murdock is the brains behinds the April 20th National Student Walkout, an idea that started with a Change.org petition and continues on with more than 200 associated high school chapters. Murdock penned the petition from her suburban home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, less than half an hour away from Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 elementary school children and six educators were shot and killed by a single shooter in 2012. At the time, Murdock was only ten years old. Murdock and her peers' preteen and teenage years have been marked with more than 300 school shootings since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting -- a number so high that victim names and tragic narratives have begun to blur in the public conscious. But that all changed when a former student shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

"We're trying to create a long-term strategy to get young people really, really involved and to demystify how politics move in the United States."

The Parkland massacre, largely recognized as the most deadly school shooting since Columbine, sparked student protests around the country, with Marjory Stoneman students at the forefront. On March 14, exactly one month after the shooting in Parkland, thousand of students and teachers walked out of their classrooms to protest gun violence, with many protests lasting for 17 minutes to commemorate the the number of lives lost. Last week's National School Walkout and the network of high school chapters it created, hopes to build alongside the groundwork laid by last month's nationwide action.

"Momentum, regardless of the movement's strategy or focus, is always something any activist is weary of," Murdock said. "It's something we have to fight against, because it's part of human nature to kind of want to forget. So for us, it's all about the civil engagement."

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Civil engagement, Murdock says, is the next step. Beyond thoughts and prayers, and in addition to public and online action. With the actual day-long action behind her, Murdock wants to keep the National School Walkout vision alive by increasing an understanding of the political system, and the power that citizen voices wield, in high school communities across the country.

It's an ambitious goal, and it's lead almost completely by students. A letter from Murdock on the movement website reads: "Adults have failed us, so we've taking things into our own hands. But the walkouts aren't the end, they are just beginning". To Murdock, this "grown-ups on the sidelines" approach is imperative to the movement's success. She advises adults to respect the student-grown identity of the movement. "As a student activist you always want to make sure that no one's controlling you," Murdock said. "Be an ally. Don't be a commander, don't even be a teacher, just be an ally and let this movement grow and let it bloom."

In the coming weeks, Murdock and her peer organizers plan to launch new events, new organizing tools, and new opportunities for nationwide collaboration, all focused around increasing the voices of pre-voting age citizens in the fight against gun violence. Currently, they're working with the support of Indivisible, a national progressive advocacy organization started in response to the 2016 presidential election.

"Adults have failed us, so we've taking things into our own hands."

"Over the coming weeks, we're going to be trying to lead an effort to crowdsource the most ambitious gun violence prevention platform we've ever seen by using and talking to kids from all over the country," Murdock said. "We're trying to create a long-term strategy to get young people really, really involved and to demystify how politics move in the United States."

Murdock couldn't give too many details on what's next for the National Student Walkout movement, but promises another mass national engagement event in the coming weeks. "it's one that's going to have long term effects," she said. But for now, Murdock and her co-organizers are focusing on empowering students to join the NSW chapter movement, especially in communities where conversations about gun violence are underrepresented.

If you're in a position where you don't have family support, you don't have community support, that doesn't mean you're wrong... History has shown that individuals where the odds may be against them but they have a message that matters, the truth is the truth," Murdock said. "Time is on our side. We're going to grow up to take office and vote.... Young people have always been at the forefront of social change, and you are a piece of that and you are a part of that history."
The initial National School Walkout may have passed, but it's not too late for high school students to start their own chapter or contact your congressperson. Students who participated on April 20th can also share their story and experience through the NSW online reporting form . Already secured that high school diploma? Find opportunities to speak out against gun violence with one of the nation's many multi-generational anti-gun violence advocacy groups such as the like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence or Moms Demand Gun Violence .

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This Teen Activist Isn't Done Fighting for Common Sense Gun Control

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Image via Lane Murdock When 13 people lost their lives at the hands of two teenage gunmen at Columbine High School in 1999, 16-year-old Lane Murdock wasn't even a spec on the global population radar.

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It's lunchtime on a Tuesday, and the kids are piling into a pizzeria booth in Coral Springs, Fla., to plot a revolution. "The adults know that we're cleaning up their mess," says Cameron Kasky, an 11th-grader at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who started the #NeverAgain movement to curb gun violence three weeks earlier in his living room. "It's like they're saying, 'I'm sorry I made this mess,'" adds buzzcut senior Emma González, "while continuing to spill soda on the floor."

Kasky and González are sitting with two more of the movement's leaders, Alex Wind and Jaclyn Corin. Except they're not sitting, exactly. They're crouching diagonally on the seat and leaning back on one another's knees in order to devour their calzones while maintaining as much physical contact as possible. Corin throws a crouton into González's mouth. Kasky uses Corin's knees as a pillow. The conversation turns from their fellow organizer David Hogg ("So laser-focused," González says, that "he could make his body get pregnant if he wanted to") to the conspiracy theory that they're actors being paid by shadowy donors (prompting Kasky to ask why his credit card was recently declined at McDonald's) to their prolific trolling of the NRA. They agree that the gun lobby's spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, is "very hot but kind of scary," as González puts it.

The pizza joint is a few hundred yards away from the school where 17 of their peers and teachers were murdered a month ago. At 2:21 p.m. on Valentine's Day, according to authorities, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student, entered the freshman building armed with an AR-15 and opened fire into four classrooms on the first floor. Corin had just delivered carnations to the building to raise funds for junior prom; she had handed one flower to a girl who was shot minutes later. After the fire alarm went off during his AP environmental science class, Hogg took a video of students crouching inside a tiny classroom to hide from the shooter. The video went viral, landing him a recurring spot on the cable-TV circuit. The next day, Kasky invited Wind and Corin over to his house to plan a march for gun reform. Together, they started the #NeverAgain hashtag on Twitter.

Most of these kids cannot vote, order a beer, make a hotel reservation or afford a pizza without pooling some of their allowance. On the surface, they're not so different from previous generations of idealistic teenagers who set out to change the world, only to find it is not so easy. Yet over the past month, these students have become the central organizers of what may turn out to be the most powerful grassroots gun-reform movement in nearly two decades. For much of the rest of the country, numbed and depressed by repeated mass shootings, the question has become, Can these kids actually do it?

No one thinks it will be easy. Gun violence in America is one of those problems that can feel truly hopeless. The U.S. has only 4.4% of the world's population, yet it accounts for roughly 42% of the world's guns, according to the comprehensive 2007 Small Arms Survey. And roughly 31% of the world's mass shooters are American, according to a University of Alabama study. Even as mass-shooting deaths mount, our Second Amendment has made gun rights a third-rail issue: roughly 90% of Americans agree on "common-sense" solutions like universal background checks, yet absolutists stand in the way of any meaningful action.

After Adam Lanza killed 20 first-graders and six staff members at a Connecticut elementary school in December 2012, politicians tried to tackle the issue. President Obama issued Executive Orders to strengthen the background-check system and study gun violence, and several states tightened gun restrictions. Yet Congress failed to pass a modest bipartisan bill to close loopholes for gun sales. In the five years since, a familiar pattern has emerged. Every month or so, a killer shoots innocent people at random. There is a brief period of mourning. Democrats offer feeble pleas for new gun limits; Republicans offer "thoughts and prayers." No substantial laws are passed, and the nation moves on. This was the response when Omar Mateen killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in 2016; when Stephen Paddock massacred 58 people at a Las Vegas concert last October; when Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 people in a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church in November.

But in the days after the Parkland shooting, something different happened. The Parkland kids, at once tearful and cutting, publicly called out the NRA's influence on national politics, and shamed the leaders they considered responsible for the nation's lax gun laws. (Privately, they have dubbed Florida Governor Rick Scott "Voldemort" and called Senator Marco Rubio some names that are unprintable.) Their voices quickly went viral. González had no Twitter account before the shooting-11 days later, she had more followers than the NRA. They called for specific changes like a renewed assault-weapons ban, universal background checks and digitized gun-ownership records.

Perhaps most important, the Parkland kids painted the NRA and their allies as the mortal enemies of the roughly 50 million schoolkids growing up in what Kasky calls "the mass-shooting generation." They took the mantle of "personal protection" from the gun lobby, while reframing the larger gun debate along generational lines.

And so news that was once met with sad resignation now drives teenagers to march in the streets. On March 14, nearly a million kids across the country left class for the National School Walkout to protest the school-shooting epidemic. Support for stronger gun regulations spiked to 68% after the shooting, up from 60% last November, according to a Politico/Morning Consult survey. Public support for the NRA is down to 37%, according to a WSJ/NBC poll, the first time since 2000 that the organization has been viewed more negatively than positively. Companies from Delta Airlines to Hertz to MetLife cut ties with the NRA. Dick's Sporting Goods announced it would stop carrying assault weapons. Florida, known for its historically soft gun policies, passed a bill March 9 that bans bump stocks, imposes a waiting period, raises the minimum age to buy a weapon and allows cops to take guns from mentally disturbed people. Sixty-seven NRA-endorsed Republicans voted for the bill, and the gun-friendly GOP Governor Scott signed it.

How a movement catches fire is always a mystery, but the Parkland kids seem matched for this moment. They're young enough to be victimized by a school shooting, but old enough to shape the aftermath. Like many teenagers, they're at a peculiar stage in their lives where they feel at once vulnerable and invincible, highly social yet impervious to the etiquette expected from adults. Their bombastic style mirrors President Trump's: they call their enemies names and hurl sick burns at politicians and lobbyists as if they're shouting across the locker room.

None of which means they'll actually succeed, and the kids are not entirely naive about their chances. They know the GOP-controlled Congress is unlikely to pass meaningful new gun laws. Although Trump briefly signaled support for strengthening background checks, he quickly abandoned that position. Nor do the Parkland kids speak for everyone, by a long shot: polls show that young people as a whole do not necessarily favor stricter gun laws than their parents. Which means the kids face the same question as the movements before them: If this government doesn't respond to their demands, did their movement make a difference?

The first big test will come on March 24 with the student-led March for Our Lives, which already has registered more than 800 demonstrations in all 50 states and on six continents. ("Sorry, Antarctica, y'all are gonna get shot," Kasky quips.) The organizers plan to allow only young speakers to address the Washington march, and only artists under 24 can submit official poster designs. The march is meant to expand voter registration among like-minded members of the school-shooting generation: the kids that grew up post-Columbine, who huddled behind barricades during active-shooter drills and learned to tape construction paper over classroom windows.

From there, the Parkland kids plan to make gun reform the central issue for young voters in the midterms. "We're going to show these politicians that we're coming for them," says Hogg. Kasky is more ambitious. "The world failed us," he says, "and we're here to make a new one that's going to be easier on the next generation. If you're against that, then get out."

The youth revolt is being planned in a donated office space in a strip mall, next to a mediocre deli in a small town near Parkland. To get inside the three windowless rooms where the #NeverAgain movement is headquartered, you have to knock three times on a locked glass door and then loudly identify yourself so the kids are sure you're not an armed stalker. (They have received death threats.) Inside the lair, there are boxes of March for Our Lives T-shirts and a bust of Robert F. Kennedy next to whiteboards with schedules of conference calls. On one wall there's a collage of mail that runs the gamut from encouraging to obscene. (An excerpt from one letter, sent to 17-year-old Parkland organizer Delaney Tarr: "Shut the f-ck up, you stupid f-cking c-nt.") On another there's a map of the U.S. where the teens have labeled the hundreds of sibling marches. A broom closet near the back bears a sheet of notebook paper that says Cameron Kasky's office, directly across from a tiny bathroom labeled Cameron Kasky's other office.

Everything crackles with a sense of ferocious optimism. It feels like the last rehearsal of a high school musical, halftime at state championships, the final days of senior year. The kids stream in and out on no particular schedule, tumble to the floor to read their fan mail, twirl around on chairs while composing tweets and crowd into a tiny conference room for calls with reporters or lawmakers. One day, they spent an afternoon making a video mocking NRA spokeswoman Loesch (they call her "the woman from the SuperBeets commercial" after digging up an old spot she did for a beet-juice product). Another day, they met with Representative Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who represents Parkland in Congress. There's a sense that anything can happen in this little corner of the teenage universe, because all kinds of things can.

Gun politics have vexed adult organizers for decades, but so far the Parkland teens have had striking successes. Even though the kids are disappointed in the Florida bill ("It's like they tried to take a big step forward and then tripped," Hogg says), it's still the first significant piece of gun legislation to come out of the Florida legislature in at least 20 years. The March 14 school walkouts, organized by Women's March youth groups, surpassed the 750,000 protesters who flooded the Washington Mall for the Million Mom March in 2000 in what was then the largest gun-safety protest in U.S. history. "This youth movement is unprecedented," says Kris Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which was formed by the organizations behind the 2000 march. "What's different here is that the children who are impacted are older, and they are able to give voice in a way that could not happen before."

The #NeverAgain organizers built a movement with the skills they learned in high school. Hogg, an aspiring journalist who studies TV production at Stoneman Douglas, has anointed himself the movement's "press secretary." Corin, the bubbly junior class president who did a 50-page term paper on gun control last year, organized roughly 100 students to travel to Tallahassee to lobby the state legislature. Kasky and Wind, both drama kids, have given some of the most emotional testimony about the shooting and their dead classmates. González gave a speech about the NRA's influence that was informed by an AP government lesson on special-interest groups.

The kids are social-media natives who have used Twitter to stir up the same kind of fervor Trump does. If the President can mock his enemies, they reason, then why can't high school students? "People always say, 'Get off your phones,' but social media is our weapon," says Corin. "Without it, the movement wouldn't have spread this fast."

Teens have always had a unique talent for humiliation, and social media only sharpens their knives. If the Parkland kids were targeting their classmates instead of powerful lobbyists or Senators, their taunts could be mistaken for bullying. But going up against the NRA, they're like mouthy Davids slinging stones at Goliath. "They're using Twitter as a means to ridicule, to dismiss, to brush past the usual criticisms and just say, 'These people are full of it,'" says Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland who has written five books on gun policy. "The door for this has been opened by Donald Trump himself."

As teenagers who survived a school shooting, they're politically hard to hit: if the NRA or the GOP fight back, they are attacking young victims of a tragedy. One GOP candidate for the Maine house of representatives who called González a "skinhead lesbian" on Twitter faced so much online backlash that he dropped out of the race.

The students have had plenty of help. They've raised more than $4 million from small donors on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe, plus a couple million more from celebrities like George and Amal Clooney, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. A top Hollywood PR firm is assisting with press requests pro bono, and Women's March organizer Deena Katz is volunteering as a consultant on the march. The gun-reform advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, backed by billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, has given out more than $1 million in grants to local organizers planning sibling marches around the country, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is sending busloads of kids to Washington, D.C. Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer pledged $1 million to gun-safety groups' efforts to register more high school students to vote. "Our biggest problem is that we're getting too much help," says Corin.

They know that other youth campaigns against gun violence, including those led by black activists in urban communities, have not gotten the same financial support or media attention. "We came from an affluent area, and we're mostly white, and we have to use that privilege," says Tarr. The kids say they are trying to correct the imbalance. A letter from the Dream Defenders, a racial-justice group formed after the killing of Trayvon Martin, is hanging on the office wall. And in early March, the teens invited young activists from the Peace Warriors, a Chicago anti-violence group, to Parkland to discuss coordinating their efforts. "We're fighting for the same thing," says Arieyanna Williams, a high school senior from Chicago who has been working with the Peace Warriors since sophomore year. "We found our voice in Parkland. We didn't really have it here."

Inside the office, there is no adult supervision beyond Matt Deitsch and Kaylyn Pipitone, two 20-year-old college students and recent Stoneman Douglas alums who help with things that only adults can do, like signing contracts and insurance forms and paperwork for their 501(c)(4). "We want the grownups we need in this, and nothing more," says Kasky. "We only have people doing the things that as 17-year-olds we cannot." At an early #NeverAgain meeting, parents asked how they could help, recalls Alex Wind's mother.

The answer came back: "Order pizza."

The March for Our Lives almost certainly won't lead to major gun legislation in Congress this year. But the Parkland teens are taking the long view. To them, this movement is as much about mobilizing young voters as it is about gun violence. The voter-registration group HeadCount plans to dispatch roughly 5,000 volunteers to sign up young voters at U.S. marches. The Parkland kids say their goal is for 4 out of 5 young people to vote in November's midterm elections. "Either have the politicians pass legislation or set them up to be voted out," Kasky says. "It's a win-win." If only it were that simple. Only 39% of voters between 18 and 20 voted in the 2016 election, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, and only 14% of voters that age showed up to cast a ballot in the 2014 midterms. Previous turnout drives have not had much success.Not all young people vote Democratic, either. While Trump has a historically low approval rating among millennials (only 6% strongly approve of him, while 46% strongly disapprove), almost a third of millennials lean Republican, according to a Pew survey. Only 49% of 18-to-29-year-olds favored a renewed assault-weapons ban in a 2015 Pew survey, while more than half of respondents of other age groups did support a ban.

They envision a youth political movement that will address many of the other issues affecting the youngest Americans. Hogg says he would like to have a youth demonstration every year on March 24, harnessing the power of teenage anger to demand action on everything from campaign-finance reform to net neutrality to climate change. But even if none of this works-even if they never pass comprehensive gun reform, and net neutrality fails, and Citizens United endures, and climate-change legislation stalls-today's teenage rebels will become tomorrow's establishment leaders, informed by the experience that may already be shaping the gun debate.

And that, says Hogg, is the bottom line for politicians who side with the NRA. "You're gonna be smeared in the textbooks. Your legacy is gone," he says. "If you don't stand up with us now, you'll be standing against us."

- With reporting by Melissa Chan/New York

Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.

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How Parkland Students Are Taking on Politicians in the Gun Control Battle

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It's lunchtime on a Tuesday, and the kids are piling into a pizzeria booth in Coral Springs, Fla., to plot a revolution. "The adults know that we're cleaning up their mess," says Cameron Kasky, an 11th-grader at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who started the #NeverAgain movement to curb gun violence three weeks earlier in his living room.

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March for Our Lives Highlights: Students Protesting Guns Say ‘Enough Is Enough’ (Published 2018)

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Hundreds of thousands of protesters, outraged by a recent school shooting, took to the streets in Washington and around the world, calling for action against gun violence.

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Join the movement. Sign up to join us on the Road to Change, where we'll be registering people to vote across the country and demanding change to save lives.

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The Impact of Gun Violence on Children and Teens | Everytown Research & Policy

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Children’s exposure to gun violence has far reaching effects: An estimated three million children witness a shooting each year.

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Impact/Effects of Gun Violence on Children, Families, and Communites

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Impact/Effects of Gun Violence on Children, Families, and Communites

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by Julie Collins and Emily Swoveland
Over the past few years, gun violence has risen to the forefront of public consciousness. Much of the debate has focused on gun regulation and keeping deadly weapons out of the hands of potential killers, particularly those with mental illnesses. Unfortunately, far less attention has been dedicated to the impact of gun violence on victims. While individuals killed and injured in atrocities such as the Sandy Hook and Aurora Theater shootings are publicly remembered and mourned, victims of these tragedies are not limited to those men, women, and children killed, injured, or present during these horrific events. The consequences of gun violence are more pervasive and affect entire communities, families, and children. With more than 25% of children witnessing an act of violence in their homes, schools, or community over the past year, and more than 5% witnessing a shooting, it becomes not just an issue of gun regulation, but also of addressing the impact on those who have been traumatized by such violence (Finkelhor et al., 2009).

Although mental health problems are part of the debate about gun regulation, the discussion has focused primarily upon the mental health of the perpetrators' of gun crimes. In fact, most people with mental illnesses are not violent and are actually more likely to be victimized than they are to victimize others (Teplin et al, 2005). While much more can be done to address the problems of perpetrators with a mental illness, that conversation alone will not address the problems associated with gun violence. The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) believes it is time to broaden the focus of the gun debate to include the social, emotional, physical, and mental health impact of those traumatized by gun violence, especially children and youth. In their 2002 article "Mitigating the Effects of Gun Violence on Children and Youth," James Garbarino and his colleagues pointed out that "children exposed to gun violence may experience negative short and long-term psychological effects, including anger, withdrawal, posttraumatic stress, and desensitization to violence" (Garbarino et al., 2002). They also indicate that the research shows that "certain children may be at higher risk for negative outcomes if they are exposed to gun violence." The groups they identified "include children injured in gun violence, those who witness violent acts at close proximity, those exposed to high levels of violence in their communities or schools, and those exposed to violent media."

Addressing the social, emotional, and physical well-being and mental health needs of children and youth exposed to gun violence is a complex process that requires proper identification of those exposed. It also requires a sufficient number of providers trained in age-appropriate, evidence-based, and trauma-informed treatments to concurrently understand all of these concerns. In addition, it requires our society to find ways to reduce the actual numbers of children and youth who are initially exposed to gun violence. This is no easy task, given the many settings in our world that contain violent situations or imagery: schools, homes, communities, and the media.

At CWLA's 2013 National Conference, our staff and its Mental Health Advisory Board brought together professionals in the child welfare and mental health fields for a Listening Session on the topic of gun violence . Together, they started a dialogue about the often ignored impact of gun violence on the well-being of children, youth, families, and communities and discussed current efforts to address this issue; they also identified problems encountered in both policy and practice fields, providing suggestions and potential solutions. Influenced by CWLA's National Blueprint for Excellence in Child Welfare and its vision for all children and youth to grow up safely, with loving families and supportive communities, the conversation focused on the shared responsibility of individuals, families, organizations, and communities for ensuring the safety and well-being of children and youth. Specifically, participants focused on the culture of violence and fear in many of the communities they serve, the difficulties of combating gun use and violence, the need for community development that is focused on reducing violence, the impact on the children and youth exposed to violence, and what is needed to address the mental health needs of those exposed to gun violence.

CWLA's National Blueprint voices the need to protect the fundamental rights of children and emphasizes the obligation that all individuals have in ensuring a safe and supportive environment for children and youth. In line with the National Blueprint, participants at our 2013 conference discussed the ways that service providers and communities were working to protect the rights of children in relationship to gun legislation. They also pointed out the necessity of addressing gun regulation and violence at the national level, fighting for legislative protections for children and youth.

Many participants voiced frustration with the role guns currently have in American society and their frequent glorification in the media. They pointed out that gun ownership is seen as a key American value, and that many citizens feel entitled to gun ownership and dislike interventions that limit their access. Unfortunately, gun ownership is often associated with the devastating violence that takes place in communities around the country-especially those in which there is a high poverty rate, which can increase the difficulty of preventing gun-based crime. Participants identified that frequent media portrayal of guns glorifies their use and promotes using gun violence as an acceptable means of conflict resolution. They pointed out that the media fails to provide the counter- message that guns are dangerous, should be stored properly, and are not to be used for conflict resolution.

Given the current climate citing personal liberties vis-a-vis the United States Constitution, participants recognized that changing American values regarding gun ownership is an unrealistic goal. They agreed that the focus should be on providing gun education and gun safety training to gun owners and non-owners alike. In addition, communities should have access to accurate information regarding the realities of gun use, such as the annual number of gun homicides and the number of children killed by guns. They suggested that efforts must be made to counter the glorified image portrayed in the media by teaching proper gun use, illuminating the dangers guns pose to children and youth, and explaining alternatives to gun ownership for ensuring personal and home safety.

Conference participants also voiced concerns about the pervasive culture of fear and violence that exists in many of the commu- nities they serve. At the community level, participants observed that guns are often used in response to fear. They pointed out that children and youth living in violent neighborhoods feel at risk; without nonviolent conflict-resolution skills, they too readily depend on guns to solve problems. Garbarino and his colleagues, likewise, stated that "exposure to gun violence also can desensitize youth to the effects of violence and increase the likelihood that they will use violence as a means of resolving problems or expressing emotions." Often, it is only through carrying and using weapons that these youth feel safe, secure, and protected. But despite gun ownership, many children and youth remain unprotected from the violence within their communities.

Participants noted that fighting a community's culture is an uphill battle that is netting few positive results. All agreed that when communities, families, children, and youth are empowered to work together and challenge negative values, they can begin to change the culture of violence and reduce community-wide fear. While not a quick process, is essential to encourage communities to take ownership of the safety and well-being of all children, youth, and families. Consistent with the standards in CWLA's National Blueprint, conference participants further suggested working one-on-one with families, children, and youth to help them build their protective factors, develop resiliency, regulate their emotions, strengthen coping strategies, and transform negative life views into ones of hope for a better future. There was also widespread agreement about the importance of teaching parents how to model nonviolent behaviors for children and educating them on positive methods of discouraging violent alternatives.

In addition to shifting community acceptance of violence at a micro level by working with families, children, and youth directly, participants suggested that child welfare and mental health agencies must also encourage neighborhood residents to become connected to one another and oppose violence at the macro level-i.e., within the greater community. Agency leaders and those who provide services can encourage these changes by nurturing residents' social connections and fostering strong social networks within the community. Once united with the larger community, they will be in a position to more easily influence the needed systematic changes to norms and values.

The consequences of exposure to violence on child development are very real. CWLA's National Blueprint points out that children and youth exposed to chronic trauma can experience inhibited brain development, producing a lasting impact on life outcomes. Likely a result of such exposure, participants noted numerous skill deficits among the children and youth they serve who live in neighborhoods that have high rates of poverty and crime. As suggested by the research, many children experience problems with violence and aggression because they lack nonviolent conflict-resolution skills. Much of this violence and aggression is further exacerbated by emotional overload from exposure to violence. Children and youth exposed to violence experience significant stress, and often struggle to identify and regulate their emotions, as a result of developmental impacts from their frequent exposure to trauma. Their emotions are often internalized and can later erupt in aggression and violence.

The Listening Session attendees also acknowledged that these skill deficits can be the result of children and youth learning behavior through observing and mimicking the actions of those around them. When adults exhibit aggressive and violent behavior, such behavior is often interpreted as appropriate and acceptable. A cycle of violence starts when children and youth observe and embrace negative adult behaviors and, eventually, model such interactions with their own children. With much at stake, a laundry list of strategies and supports was offered to address the impact on child development and reduce the negative impact of exposure to violence. Participants lauded the importance of early, family-level prevention, suggesting that parents must be assisted in accessing the social services necessary to strengthen protective factors, build resiliency, help their children regulate their emotions, develop coping skills, and provide physical and psychological safety.

Participants also identified numerous skills that must be taught directly to children and youth affected by violence to reduce the impact of traumatic stress, including conflict-resolution skills that demonstrate simple problem-solving techniques that are nonviolent and/or force-aversive. In addition to developing communication skills, children and youth need to be taught to identify and regulate their emotions; once they better understand their emotions and how they affect their behavior, they can learn how to appropriately respond to their feelings in ways that are not harmful to themselves or others.

The Listening Session attendees recognized that until child and youth exposure to violence is eliminated, childhood mental health problems will likely continue to grow. The group noted that they are witnessing dramatic growth in the number of children and youth with mental health problems, and that service providers must actively work to educate the public on childhood mental illness. Mental illness continues to be stigmatized, and public hesitancy to discuss the matter is detrimental to children and youth who are impacted by mental health problems. It was further noted that many parents, teachers, and workers are often uneducated regarding mental health conditions and, as a result, fail to identify early signs of mental illness, delaying child and youth access to treatment. It was pointed out that even once treatment is received and a diagnosis is given, many adults lack knowledge about specific mental illnesses and are unsure of how to interact with children and youth with a mental health problem. Without proper education, parents, teachers, and other well- meaning figures may unknowingly exacerbate a child or youth's mental health problems.

In addition to reducing risk factors and developing protective factors and resiliency among youth currently suffering from mental health problems, professionals agreed that communities must also help children and youth at-risk of mental health problems develop protective factors to shield them from the negative mental health outcomes that frequently result from exposure to traumatic life events.

Preventing childhood exposure to violence and mitigating the impact of previous exposure is too large a job for any one group or organization. Child welfare, prevention, and mental health agencies cannot tackle this problem alone. Agencies must embrace the message of CWLA's National Blueprint and encourage communities to take responsibility for the well-being of children and youth. Combating the negative impact of violence on children and youth requires the collaboration of teachers, principals, social workers, police officers, doctors, parents, friends, and more. Each person has a role to play, be it screening for exposure to violence, mitigating the impact of violence through emotional support, or preventing violence through community activism and policy initiatives. Only when all facets of society recognize the true negative impact that exposure to violence has on the well-being of children, youth, families, and communities, and actively work to address this problem, will substantive change take place.

While it will take collaboration between various agencies and specific communities for a significant drop in child and youth exposure to violence to occur, many professionals are actively fighting this battle. Doctors around the country are talking to parents of young children about gun safety and protecting their children from harm. Teachers, principals, and school administrators are actively working with students, reinforcing pro-social behaviors and teaching conflict-resolution skills. Religious figures of all faiths are teaching children and youth about loving themselves, others, and their communities, and about how to be morally centered people. Social workers are educating parents on positive childrearing to reduce exposure to domestic violence and other home-based traumas. Lobbyists and politicians are fighting for legislation that increases access to mental health services and limits public access to guns.

All of these professionals, and many more, are actively working to reduce violence and improve the well-being of children and youth across the country. Individually, they make small but meaningful contributions to the effort, but together, as a united front, these individuals and agencies can make a significant impact in the lives of children and youth exposed to violence in their homes, at their schools, and in their communities. Recent incidents like the Fort Hood shooting once again raise the issue of gun violence. Although this happened on a military base, children, youth, families, and the surrounding communities have all been impacted. While the issue of gun violence seems stalled in this current Congress, it continues to be a central concern for all of us.

CWLA's Listening Session helped begin the dialogue on current efforts to prevent child and youth exposure to violence and mitigate the impact of previous exposure. Now is the time for all to come together and finish this discussion. n

Julie Collins is CWLA's Director of Standards for Practice Excellence. Emily Swoveland served as an intern at CWLA in 2013. The authors offer special thanks to Linda Spears and Andrea Bartolo.
References
Garbarino, J., Bradshaw, C.P., & Vorrasi, J.A. (2002). Mitigating the Effects of Gun Violence on Children and Youth. The Future of Children, 12(2), 73-87. Retrieved from https://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/12_02_05.pdf.

Finkelhor, D., et al. (2009). Children's Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, October 2009. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/227744.pdf.

Teplin, L., et al. (2005). Crime Victimization in Adults With Severe Mental Illness: Comparison With the National Crime Victimization Survey. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 911-921.

To comment on this article, e-mail voice@cwla.org.

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The Impact of Gun Violence on Children, Families, & Communities

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by Julie Collins and Emily Swoveland Over the past few years, gun violence has risen to the forefront of public consciousness. Much of the debate has focused on gun regulation and keeping deadly weapons out of the hands of potential killers, particularly those with mental illnesses.

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Newsela | Understanding key terms in the gun control debate

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Gun regulations can vary from state to state

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Newsela - Opinion: U.S. hears cries for change by teens in Florida but not Black Lives Matter youths

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Column: Most Americans relate to Florida shooting survivors, but not Black Lives Matter causes

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Newsela | Parents and lawmakers are deeply divided on whether to arm teachers

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Newsela | PRO/CON: Is it time to pass tough gun control laws?

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For or against stricter gun control laws?

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Student Activist David Hogg Gun Policy Safety, Mar 23 2018 | Video | C-SPAN.org

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The day before the 'March for Our Lives' rallies across the U.S., Axios hosts a series of conversations about gun policy and safety. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High...

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House Passes a Narrow School Safety Measure

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House Passes a Narrow School Safety Measure

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As students across the country walked out of their schools for theNational Student Walkout in honor of the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, House lawmakers passed a narrow gun violence prevention measure with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The STOP School Violence Act, a bill that doesn't address guns in any substantive waybut provides an annual $50 million grant to schools for training programs and revamped reporting systems to bolster school safety, passed 407-10 Wednesday.

It's being hailed as a step toward addressing gun violence, but it's a far cry from the "comprehensive" gun control student activists are demanding - and that even President Donald Trump once called on Congress to pass.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting in a Parkland high school that killed 17 people and injured more than a dozen others, pressure mounted for Congress to actually do something on guns - and Trump seemed enthusiastic about the idea.

But after a confusing meeting in the White House in which Trump sided with Democrats and censured Republicans for being "scared of the NRA," a fast-paced news cycle, and a concerted effort by conservatives and pro-gun organizations to reorient the conversation away from guns, the GOP is now coalescing around the narrowest possible violence prevention proposals - many of which don't even address guns at all.

"As I see it, any movement will be focused on school security - not gun control per se," one GOP congressional aide said.

In the Senate, Majority Whip John Cornyn said lawmakers shouldn't raise their expectations about what can pass the Senate and instead focus on realistic options. And the White House, which shifted Trump's calls for comprehensive gun control toward a proposal that looked a lot more like the National Rifle Association's platform (including arming teachers), has been preoccupied with Cabinet shake-ups and hardline immigration rhetoric.

"For an optimist, I'm a cynic on this issue - Republicans have already succeeded by making it yesterday's news," Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) told Vox recently. "I live near Sandy Hook, so I speak with authority to say that nothing is going to happen that makes this year different."

Trump has given Republicans reason to stall the gun debate

In a nationally televised bipartisan meeting on gun control in late February, Trump had Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) cheering and Cornyn looking like he'd seen a ghost.

The madcap meeting with Trump on guns, which was meant to add clarity and more urgency to the debate, instead saw the president undermining the importance of "due process," calling for "comprehensive" gun control, and even humoring the idea of an assault weapons ban - all somewhat unexpected positions for a GOP president to hold.

Republicans' confusion on Trump's position effectively stalled negotiations on Capitol Hill.

Any movement on background check reforms "got set back because of all the events" of the news cycle, the GOP aide said. "There could've been some background check measures, but the way this has been handled on multiple fronts significantly damaged any momentum."

The White House seems to have moved on as well. Trump met with video game executives last week to discuss violence in gaming and has delayed rolling out a proposal on gun reforms. When the White House did announce its proposal, it backed away from raising age limits on buying assault weapons, and instead renewed support for arming teachers and improving school safety.

So far, the House has only moved on a school safety bill that, while bipartisan, is far narrower than the scope of gun violence prevention legislation Trump was discussing only last week.

Instead, the bill reflects what the NRA is most comfortable with: a gun reform bill that doesn't actually touch guns or impact how Americans buy them.

The bigger talks on guns are disappearing

Some Republicans are still talking guns. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), at whom many of Parkland survivors' demands to do something were directed, has taken the lead in proposing bipartisan gun control legislation. He presented a plan that would strengthen background check laws, requiring gun sellers to notify local law enforcement if somebody lies about their history and fails a background check to buy a gun - a felony under current law.

In the House, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) has a filed a discharge petition for his bipartisan proposal with Rep. Peter King (R-NY) - a congressional maneuver that could force the speaker of the House to bring up a vote on a bill that gives states resources to expand background checks system and closes a number of loopholes for guns sold online or at gun shows. Currently, only federally licensed gun sellers are required to perform a background check.

Even if Democrats are united on the discharge petition,they still need roughly two dozen Republicans to back it before reaching the 218 threshold to force a vote. The petition has gained some bipartisan support but not yet enough to force Ryan to hold a vote.As far as Democrats are concerned, Republican leadership seems fixated on finding a narrower approach.

"I think the leadership's goal is to find that spot where they can say we did something while having actually done as little as possible," a Democratic congressional staffer said of Republicans' strategy. The STOP School Violence Act might be just that, although House Republican leaders voiced some support for the Senate's Fix NICS Act, which would only reinforce existing laws requiring state and federal agencies to report to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The House has already passed a version of the Fix NICS Act, which also expanded concealed carry permits to be allowed across state lines. Trump told Republicans to keep concealed carry provisions out of any gun control package this time.

But the Thompson-King bill goes further than Fix NICS - and Republicans don't seem eager to do that.

The school walkout won't be the only show of activism

As eager as Republicans might be to move on from gun control, it will likely be a difficult issue to avoid in coming months, as gun violence prevention activists expand nationwide protests.

Beyond the National Student Walkout, there are more than 400 marches planned across all 50 states in support of the March for Our Lives movement on March 24, after high school students sparked a national rally in Washington, DC.

An outpouring of student activism made the shooting in Parkland feel different to many lawmakers. Democrats, too, are hoping a change in perception on gun control will pressure Congress to act. According to several polls after the Parkland shooting, roughly two in three Americans now say gun laws should be made stricter.

"It's too early to read the tea leaves in DC, but we know the public wants action," John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, said. "They know, too, who stands in the way: the NRA and the politicians they bankroll in Congress. If leaders don't meet this moment on gun safety, then voters will throw them out in November."

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As student activists rally outside, the House passes a narrow school safety measure

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As students across the country walked out of their schools for theNational Student Walkout in honor of the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, House lawmakers passed a narrow gun violence prevention measure with overwhelming bipartisan support.

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"Fight for your lives," a high school student urged the crowd Saturday in Washington at the March For Our Lives demonstration.

Emma Gonzales has emerged as one of the most outspoken student leaders from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a shooter killed 17 people last month.
WATCH: Hundreds of Thousands in US March, Speak Out for Gun Reforms
Gonzales and other students from the Florida high school organized the demonstration in Washington to rally for stricter gun laws. More than 800 sister marches were held in other U.S. cities and around the world.

The mass shooting at the Florida school has sparked outrage and political activism among young people across the U.S.

During Gonzales' address to the crowd, at one point she stood silently for six minutes and 20 seconds, the time it took for the gunman to kill the 17 people at her school. Then she said, "The shooter has ceased shooting and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job."
David Hogg: Politicians who oppose gun laws, get your resumes ready
On Facebook Saturday morning, the National Rifle Association (NRA) which has consistently opposed stricter gun laws posted a message: "Today's protests aren't spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plans to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones."
Protest in Atlanta
In Atlanta, Georgia, tens of thousands of people -- including more students from Parkland -- marched carrying signs saying "Protect Kids, Not Guns," and "Vote Them Out."

Civil rights leader and U.S. Representative John Lewis marched, too, wearing a large red letter "F" pinned to his clothes. He said it was the grade -- on a scale of A to F -- that the NRA gave him for supporting gun control.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and several members of the state Legislature also attended the Atlanta rally.

In New York City, former Beatles member Paul McCartney attended the rally, telling CNN, "One of my best friends was killed in gun violence right around here, so it's important to me." McCartney was referring to his former bandmate John Lennon, who was shot to death in 1980 outside his New York City apartment building.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said in a statement: "The sight of patriots in Washington, D.C. and across the country speaking out for change was more than inspiring. It was a sign that there has never been more energy and urgency behind the demand for sensible reform."
Gun enthusiasts march, too
However, the gun control marches were met in some places with objectors.

A man who wanted to be identified only as "Joe" from upstate New York spoke to VOA in front of the Trump International Hotel, just blocks from the White House.

"This whole march ... is just an emotional reaction to something that is very tragic," he said. He added that gun control proposals are not "going to reduce gun violence, it's just going to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens."

Hundreds of gun enthusiasts marched in Salt Lake City Saturday, calling for better protections for schools and for arming teachers. They turned up in Phoenix, Arizona, as well, challenging the gun-control activists to debate the issue.

Photo Gallery:

Rubio releases statement
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, whose district includes the Parkland, Florida, high school where last month's shooting took place, has been criticized by the Parkland students for accepting more than $3 million in political contributions from the NRA. On Saturday, he released a statement welcoming the demonstrations, but added, "Making a change requires finding common ground with those who hold opposing views."

President Donald Trump, who has not commented on Saturday's demonstrations, is spending the weekend at his vacation home in Florida, less than an hour's drive from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

In Palm Beach
Hundreds of protesters in Palm Beach lined up along the route Trump's motorcade usually takes from his golf club to his vacation home, Mar-a-Lago, on Saturday. But his motorcade took a detour, avoiding the demonstrators.

The Palm Beach Post reports the detour also avoided a large billboard installed along the motorcade route last week that calls for the president's impeachment.
Opinions shifting
A new poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reveals that nearly half of Americans do not expect their politicians to change gun laws.

The poll also found, however, that 69 percent of Americans surveyed thought gun laws should be tightened, up from 61 percent in in October 2016 and 55 percent in October 2013.

Overall, the survey indicated 90 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of gun owners favored stricter gun control laws.

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'Fight For Your Lives,' Teen Activist Urges at Gun-Control Rally

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"Fight for your lives," a high school student urged the crowd Saturday in Washington at the March For Our Lives demonstration. Emma Gonzales has emerged as one of the most outspoken student leaders from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a shooter killed 17 people last month.

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When Cate Whitman saw the news of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, she immediately called the youth initiative coordinator of the Women's March to see how she could get involved in the response.

Now Whitman, a 17-year-old high school junior in New York City, is one of thousands of students around the country who plan to participate in a walkout on March 14, the one-month anniversary of the shooting. The walkout, organized by Women's March Youth EMPOWER, the youth affiliate of Women's March, is one of several demonstrations planned by a variety of groups to call for action on gun control - another is the March For Our Lives on March 24.

To get a sense of what the walkout will look like, and what it's like to be a teenager organizing against gun violence today, I spoke to Whitman and Winter Minisee, a 17-year-old high school senior from Riverside, California, who got involved with the Women's March after meeting the co-chairs at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference last year.

Both are helping organize the March 14 demonstrations at their schools and around the country, and both talked to me about why this could be a turning point for gun violence in America, why it's important to talk about shootings that don't happen at schools, and why critics of teenage activists need to pick up a history book.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and style.

Anna North

Tell me about the March 14 walkout. What can we expect?

Winter Minisee

We are doing a walkout through schools throughout the nation. Actually, some are international - we do have some in Canada already planned. Because it's youth-led we're able to really galvanize other people our age to make sure that their voice is being heard, and so far we have more than 100,000 RSVPs for the action on Facebook.

Cate Whitman

It's going to last for 17 minutes to commemorate the 17 lives lost on February 14, and we are asking people to wear orange in solidarity. We want each school to spend those 17 minutes doing whatever they feel comfortable with and whatever they think is going help them heal most and whatever they think is going to make the most impact.

You can preregister or register to vote online now in a few simple steps, so during those 17 minutes, some schools are taking a few minutes out to do that for their students who are of voting age. I know some schools are doing lie-ins, some schools are doing chants, some schools are doing songs.

It's great because you get to see how each student in each school wants to spend those 17 minutes remembering those lost and showing that our voices will be heard, even though we are students.

Anna North

Why orange?

Winter Minisee

Orange is the national color for awareness for gun violence.

Anna North

What was it like for you as a high school student when you saw the news of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida?

Cate Whitman

Before giving myself a chance to really dwell on it, I immediately called Tabitha [St. Bernard-Jacobs, youth initiative coordinator for the Women's March] and asked how I could be involved. Just really putting our grief into action - that's how we've been responding to it.

I've been trying to keep reminding myself why I'm involved rather than just going through the motions of the logistics, keeping focused on why we're doing this and lives that have been lost, and watching videos and keeping track of the Parkland students to see how they've been doing since.

It's really heartbreaking. It could've been any of us.

Anna North

What has it been like to watch the Florida students who have been advocates around this issue?

Cate Whitman

I'm so glad that they're getting a platform and being able to have their voices heard on such a large scale. It's pretty heartbreaking to see people who are maybe nonbelievers of the shooting or people who are internet trolls attacking them online. But I also think that those students are so strong and have responded so gracefully to all of the comments.

Winter Minisee

It's very empowering just to see people our age taking an active role in changing history.

The support they have been getting has been amazing and they deserve every bit of it. A lot of people have been raising the question, where's the support when it comes to other victims of gun violence?Where's that support for example maybe with the Black Lives Matter movement, for other people who are working to end gun violence in other places?

Although yes, this is very important that they are getting that attention, we also have to make sure that we're amplifying and bringing awareness to the other forms of gun violence. Gun violence in Chicago - it's not unheard of, it's not an anomaly for a kid to be shot.

And so its very important that while we uplift school shootings and mass shootings, we're also lifting up the work that has been happening for years and years. A good place to start would be Erica Ford.

Erica Ford is the founder of LIFE Camp, which is a grassroots organization based in New York that focuses on gun violence and intervention programs. They're very adamant about making sure that gun violence is addressed as a public health issue.

Anna North

What's your response to conservative critics of teenage gun-control activists, like Bill O'Reilly, who recently asked, "Should the media be promoting opinions by teenagers who are in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases?"

Winter Minisee

It's crazy! Literally some of the greatest movements in America have been run by youth. In historical context, it doesn't make sense when people say youth can't lead. Honestly, they can just read a book or read an article. It's not even educated.

Cate Whitman

Also, when Bill O'Reilly's talking about, "They're not in an emotional state to be making decisions for our country" - when has anybody ever wanted to pass a law or write a law or change anything in our country without it being somewhat emotionally driven?

People aren't changing laws because they just kind of feel like it. They're changing laws because they feel impassioned, and that's what's happening right now. Seventeen or 65, that's how things get changed.

Whether these people like it or not, they can harp on our age, they can harp on where we are, they can harp on how we're doing it, but it's happening, and we're in charge of it.

Winter Minisee

They just need to follow the youth.

Anna North

Talk to me about the Women's March's involvement in this issue. How does it fit into the larger Women's March platform, and how is gun violence a women's issue?

Winter Minisee

The Women's March is very intentional about our messaging and making sure that we have a very intersectional lens when we look at different problems. We do have the Power to the Polls campaign, which is going be a national tour - we hit states and register 1 million new voters.

In terms of the walkout, we are definitely encouraging students to register to vote, because a lot of the problem is the people who are in office. They aren't listening. We don't have time to wait and keep talking to them. At this point, we're going to take their jobs, and we're going put someone else in place who has the intention to listen to us and to get done the work that needs to get done.

Cate Whitman

There are certain parts of gun violence that have been primarily female victims and a lot of victims who have been part of marginalized groups in general. It's a human issue, which means it's a female issue.

Gun violence is intersectional, so we have to take that same approach.

Anna North

Past school shootings haven't led to major policy change but a lot of people are asking whether this time is different. What do you think?

Winter Minisee

People are tired - we've had enough. And so because of that, I think something good is going to come out of it.

Cate Whitman

I think the approach is a bit more organized this time. We're not focused on just one action, we're focused on sustained and combined action. It's completely, completely inspiring seeing people our age, people younger, people older, all coming together. Teenagers don't really take no for an answer.

Winter Minisee

And most of us are going to be of age to vote.

Anna North

Do you think the fact that teenage survivors are speaking out in this moment is having an effect on public opinion?

Winter Minisee

Because the survivors are speaking out it makes it hard to make it necessarily a partisan thing. It's a lot harder to look them in the face and tell them no or not listen to them.

Anna North

Anything else you want to say about the walkout or the issue of gun violence more generally?

Winter Minisee

The intersectional lens is so, so important when we're talking about gun violence. I think it's important to note that America was literally founded on gun violence. It was founded on the genocide of Natives; it was founded on the backs of slaves.

We can't just address the guns, we really have to address the culture around guns and gun violence in general in America, and to do that we have to be very introspective.

Cate Whitman

Our age is not the focus of this issue. The focus of this issue is what's going to be done and what we're going to make happen. So if people wanna talk about our age, if people want to put us down for that, if people don't actually want to engage in real conversation and argument, they have no place at the table.

Winter Minisee

They just need to listen to us at this point. We've been telling them!

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"Teenagers don't really take no for an answer": young activists see a turning point on guns

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When Cate Whitman saw the news of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, she immediately called the youth initiative coordinator of the Women's March to see how she could get involved in the response.

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Student activists are preparing to lead a "March for our Lives" on Saturday. Similar marches are being held across the country, intended to protest gun violence and promote safer schools. KSJD's Austin Cope spoke with one of the march organizers, a 15-year-old student at Dolores High School.

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"We Know Way More Than People Think We Know:" Teen Activists Prepare to Lead March in Cortez

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Student activists are preparing to lead a "March for our Lives" on Saturday. Similar marches are being held across the country, intended to protest gun violence and promote safer schools. KSJD's Austin Cope spoke with one of the march organizers, a 15-year-old student at Dolores High School.

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PHOENIX - Student activists have planned a march in Phoenix Saturday calling for gun reform and increased attention on school safety. Saturday's march is one of hundreds planned across the U.S.

The student activists are continuing to call on Governor Doug Ducey to meet with them, even offering him a speaker's slot at the rally.

The teens, who held a sit-in at Ducey's office last week, accused him at a news conference Wednesday at the state Capitol of dodging their attempts to have a dialogue.

They also reiterated their beliefs that his school safety proposals do not go far enough.

The youths say the plan does not incorporate measures such as universal background checks at every point of a gun sale or a ban on bump stocks.

Thousands are expected at the march at the state Capitol.

The organizers are advising participants not to engage with counter-protesters.
RELATED: Find a March for Our Lives march near you
The students say they want to meet with the governor about legislation that would ensure background checks for all gun sales, ban bump stocks and keep firearms away from the mentally ill.

Organizers say people that want to participate should arrive at the Arizona State Capitol no later that 9 a.m. and meet at the Wesley Bolin Plaza. Several speakers are expected to begin around 10 a.m. with the march beginning at 11 a.m.

The march will begin at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza, which is located immediately east and across the street from the Capitol. The exact route after that will not be released until the rally begins.

ABC15 has learned about two pre-march events Friday night. A prayer rally will take place at Encanto United Church of Christ at 7 p.m. Marchers can meet at First Church UCC near 3rd Street and McDowell Rd. Saturday at 9 a.m. to park, pray, and ride a bus to the march.

Black Lives Matter Arizona will make signs for marchers at 7 p.m. Friday at Delicias Park on 48th Drive and Orangewood Avenue. The group will meet at Phoenix City Hall Saturday at 9 a.m. before walking over to the event at the State Capitol.

"Our ultimate goal is to influence legislation," student organizer Jacob Martinez said.

"Our asks are really quite simple," student organizer Jordan Harb said. "We just want universal background checks and an emphasis on mental health."

Student protest leaders say the school safety proposal offered by Gov. Doug Ducey this week does not go far enough to protect classrooms.

"Give us a seat at the table, and we want to have dialogue," Martinez said. "We are going to continue fighting until we see the results we've presented since day 1."

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abc15.com staff , Associated Press, Melissa Blasius

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Teen activists holding rally Saturday over school safety

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PHOENIX - Student activists have planned a march in Phoenix Saturday calling for gun reform and increased attention on school safety. Saturday's march is one of hundreds planned across the U.S. The student activists are continuing to call on Governor Doug Ducey to meet with them, even offering him a speaker's slot at the rally.

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High School Students Weigh in on Gun Laws

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High School Students Weigh in on Gun Laws

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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