Local high school and college students are planning a Pittsburgh-area “March For Our Lives” event in response to last week’s mass shooting at a Florida school.
March For Our Lives — Pittsburgh would take place March 24, to coincide with similar events planned in Washington, D.C., and other major cities to call for “sensible gun legislation” after 17 students and faculty members were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The Pittsburgh event is tentatively scheduled for noon that day, outside the City-County Building, Downtown.
Shady Side Academy students Erin and Emma Simard said they decided to plan the march when they saw survivors of the shooting at the Parkland, Fla., high school speaking out after the mass shooting.
“We were so inspired and so moved that we felt it was our duty as fellow high school students to organize something,” said Erin, a junior at Shady Side.
Erin said she hopes the march will influence local politicians to take action on legislation that will protect schools from gun violence.
“We’re just hoping to show support for all the students in Parkland ... and make a statement that we’re all in solidarity, that this is no longer acceptable,” she said.
Emma, a freshman, said many local high school and college student organizations have already approached them about joining the movement.
Among the organizers and sponsors of the event is the Pittsburgh Student Government Council, which in a letter Monday said it has already been in contact with Mayor Bill Peduto’s office and advocacy groups for logistical support and participation.
“When guns enter our classrooms at such unjustifiable regularity, those opposing sensible gun legislation have forfeited the right to make it a political debate. At this point it truly is a debate over life and death,” wrote Danielle Wicklund, a Robert Morris University student and president of the council, and Scott R. Friedman, a student at Chatham University.
Information about the Pittsburgh march can be found on Facebook.
Staff writer Andrew Goldstein contributed.
First Published: February 21, 2018, 2:42 a.m.
