This Saturday, students from across Eugene-Springfield will gather at the Wayne Morse federal courthouse to demand tougher gun restrictions and safer schools.
The “March for Our Lives” rally echoes one held four years ago in Eugene, which was organized after the Parkland shooting in Florida. An estimated 5,000 people turned out.
This Saturday’s turnout will likely be smaller, given graduation ceremonies and other end-of-school activities for local districts. But organizers Piper Everts, Samantha Streisfeld, and Amelia Sydes of Spencer Butte Middle School, are hopeful their message will resonate.
“We want to show resistance to the NRA, and show that we are standing up for proper gun rights, so that we are safe as a country,” said Everts.
“The event on June 11th nationwide is really going to be a hopefully, actually, be a point to make changes,” added Streisfeld.
“We live in Oregon and not Texas so it’s better here,” said Sydes. “But there was a (1998) shooting in Thurston, and we’ve had threats before, and it worries me, and it worries my classmates, too.”
Last month’s school violence at a grade school in Uvalde, Texas has prompted this latest observance of March for Our Lives. Two faculty members and 19 young children were killed.
Despite horrific accounts of several youngsters pulverized and decapitated by the firepower of the shooter’s AR-15, Congressional Republicans and the NRA have largely balked at suggested restrictions on firearms.
A House bill on some reforms has passed, but is not expected to get anywhere in the Senate. Meanwhile, Senators are working through a bipartisan bill, which is expected to incentivize states to pass “red flag” laws, strengthen background checks, and allocate more funds towards school security and mental health.
Organizers for this weekend’s March for Our Lives event in Eugene say it will start at noon at the federal courthouse on June 11, and encourage all participants to wear orange.
Some of the organizers from the 2018 event are reportedly attending as well, including those who were present during the 1998 Thurston School Shooting in Springfield.
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