US rally organizers vow no letup in gun control campaign
NEW YORK - The youth-led gun control movement in the United States that flexed its public muscle with huge weekend rallies has already nudged Congress to enact minor firearms changes, but must remain active if it hopes to win more meaningful regulations, lawmakers said on Sunday.
The movement that erupted after the Feb 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has generated a national conversation about gun rights and has chipped away at legislative gridlock on the issue, they said.
"The activism of these young people is actually changing the equation," Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said a day after hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied in Washington.
Tucked into a $1.3 trillion spending bill Congress passed last week were modest improvements to background checks for gun sales and an end to a ban on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studying the causes of gun violence.
"These are two things we could not have done in the past," Kaine said on CNN's State of the Union program. "But the active engagement by young people convinced Congress we better do something."
The spending bill, which President Donald Trump signed on Friday, also includes grants to help schools prevent gun violence.
The Trump administration also took a step on Friday to ban the sale of bump stocks - devices that enable semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns - that helped gunman Stephen Paddock massacre 58 people in Las Vegas in October.
Student organizers of the rallies said there will be no letup in their campaign for reform.
"This is not the end. This is just the beginning," Emma Gonzalez, a leader of the movement, said on CBS's "Face the Nation".
Gonzalez, 17, is a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and is among those calling for legislative action.
"We're going to be revving up for the elections" this November, when Congressional seats will be at stake, Gonzalez said on CBS.
"Over the summer we're going to try to go around to colleges and... reach out to the kids locally around the country."
Meanwhile, former Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum drew an angry response on social media for saying on CNN that, instead of agitating for change, students should "do something about maybe taking CPR classes" or take other training to respond to school shooters.
Reuters - Afp
(China Daily 03/27/2018 page11)
