LANSING (WWJ) -- A group of students, activists and community leaders gathered this afternoon for a March for our Lives rally and press conference near the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing following the tragic mass shooting on Michigan State University's campus that left three students dead and five critically injured last Monday.
The rally featured more than a dozen speakers, including students from MSU and Oxford High School, Michigan legislators who chair the Michigan Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention Caucus and March for Our Lives leader David Hogg, a well known gun control advocate who survived the Parkland shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School -- another horrific shooting that just passed its five-year anniversary mark.
All came together with one goal -- holding politicians accountable for a lack of action on gun violence prevention, even as mass shootings and firearm deaths plague schools and communities at large.
"We are not asking for too much when we demand that our kids are safe in their schools and in their classrooms -- from preschool to high school to college," said Nicole Kessler of the Michigan Parent Alliance for Safe Schools before introducing Mikey 23 Foundation founder Michael McKissic, who lost his son to gun violence in Lansing in 2015.
McKissic led the group in a moment of silence and prayer for the three victims of the MSU shooting -- Alexandria Verner, Brian Fraser and Arielle Anderson -- as well as those injured and all those whose lives have been lost to, or affected by gun violence.
Following the remembrance, Michigan Sen. Rosemary Bayer spoke to the efforts that are now being made in the Democrat-controlled House and Senate.
According to Bayer, a series of bills were introduced in the Senate last Thursday that would implement universal background checks, safe storage regulations and red flag laws. She added that she expects these bills to be brought to hearings, voted on and passed. "We are the adults. We have to fix it," she said, emphatically.
Bayer's position was later echoed by her caucus co-chair in the House, Rep. Brenda Carter, who lost both her son and nephew to community gun violence.
Lending the power of their voices to those of their elected officials were students from both MSU and Oxford High School, a reminder of the heartbreaking reality that two school shootings have
An MSU sophomore who lived in the same apartment complex as Alexandria Verner also called on Michigan lawmakers to implement other laws and policies to curb the epidemic of shooting deaths, including an assault weapons ban, strengthening domestic violence laws, improving funding for mental health resources, and gun safety awareness campaigns to prevent accidental gun deaths.
Olivia Upham is a former Oxford student who returned to her hometown to teach middle school just three months before the Oxford shooting, of which her younger brother is a survivor. "Remorse is not enough," she said, speaking to legislators and voters. "How will you vote, and how will you use your voice?"
Upham's mother, Renee spoke moments later. "I'm very angry, and I don't apologize for that," she said.
Renee revealed that she had recently resigner her position as a teacher, in part due to her dissatisfaction with what she sees as a lack of collective action from educators, administrators and teachers' unions on gun violence. She reminded those listening that educators have real power, especially when they work together.
Driving her point home, she recounted her disbelief that she has had to teach seven year olds which classroom objects are best to throw at a gunman should a shooting happen in their elementary school.
"You are culpable for this violence if you stay silent and do nothing," she concluded.
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Oxford survivor Madeline Johnson reminded listeners that gun violence in schools is a long-running issue and that there has been plenty of time to take action.
"We are young adults," she said, directing her thoughts to lawmakers, "we are your voters now." Johnson stated that young people will remember who helped them and who did nothing when they cast their votes.
The rally's keynote speaker was David Hogg, whose five years of advocacy work and five years of frustration since the Parkland shooting were apparent.
"The reality is this. What we're doing right now as a country is not working," Hogg said, citing a cycle of "endless debate" and "inaction."
Hogg then focused on the need for all lawmakers and citizens, regardless of political affiliation, to work together to solve this problem.
"I can respect people that don't agree with me," he stated, "but I can't accept the fact that there is nothing that we can do to end violence -- Not just in communities that look like MSU, but in every single community in our country."
He also called for generational support, saying that it cannot just be young people who lead the fight.
"I often hear older people saying 'thank god the kids are here.'"
"Stop it," Hogg said fiercely. "You're not dead, yet. We need you... Your kids are in existential danger every single day in their communities and in their schools."
"Come join us!" he called, again and again during his speech.
Mariah Cooley, a March for Our Lives board member, echoed the call to action on community-based gun violence, reiterating the greater prevalence of gun violence in Black communities and the need for change everywhere.
One of the final few speakers was Dr. Nicole Beard, an Okemos public school principal and a member of the Lansing NAACP. Dr. Beard recounted the terror she experience just three weeks ago, when the Okemos school district -- along with many others -- was on the receiving end of "swatting," prank calls made reporting false shootings.
As an administrator, Beard described the fear of not knowing whether the shooting was real or which school it may be happening in across the district. She discussed the trauma of considering where to check for students who may need help, knowing she may need to be sheltering in place herself.
Finally, she illustrated the grief of knowing parents were outside, trying to get to their children, knowing she could not let them in and still cannot give them proper answers as to why any of this happens at all.
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