Next Step For March For Our Lives? Town Halls Across MA

BOSTON, MA– Inspired by the high school students in Parkland, Florida, students across the Commonwealth are planning town halls with elected officials on Saturday, April 7, as part of a next step for the March For Our Lives movement.

The "Town Hall for Our Lives" event has students partnering with the March for Our Lives Boston and Stop Handgun Violence. The ideas is that students are creating opportunities to ask representatives questions about what they're doing or can do to end gun violence and to encourage more participation.

“We may not be old enough to vote; we are certainly old enough to voice our opinions,” said student organizer and Charlotte Lowell of Andover High School. “This movement will continue at the Town Hall for Our Lives, where we will to learn and mobilize to create the change our classrooms and communities deserve.”

Since the March for Our Lives movement began on the heels of the February shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people, students have taken up political arms in response, marching in cities and towns and asking politicians to do more to end gun violence.

In Boston, the movement has also focused on ending gun violence not just in school shootings, but in urban areas in communities of color where gun violence is most prevalent.

On average, 96 Americans are killed a day by guns. Seven of those are children.

"Those people deserve better. They deserve a country that cares about them more than the ‘right’ to own weapons of war,” said student organizer Vikiana Petit-Homme of Boston Latin Academy. “We must fight for every life that is lost senselessly to guns; we must fight for the communities of color that lose a member almost daily due to guns, but are routinely ignored in their pleas for help.”

John Rosenthal, founder of Stop Handgun Violence, has been pushing just this for the past two decades and is partnering with the Town Hall for Our Lives effort.

“Like other student movements, including the fight for civil rights and an end to the war in Vietnam, a passionate student movement to end preventable gun violence is exactly what is needed to hold elected officials accountable and change state and national gun laws. We are proud to support their events and we hope that together we will save lives and create lasting change," he said.

The Town Halls will include participation by both federal and state legislators and city councilpersons, including: US Representatives Katherine Clark, Stephen F. Lynch, Jim McGovern and Mike Capuano; State Senator Brownsberger; State Representatives Connolly, Durant, Ehrlich, Farley-Bouvier, Finn, Higgins, Linsky, Matias, Michlewitz, Ryan; Somerville Mayor Curtatone, Boston City Council members Pressley, and Essaibi George.

“I was in the 4th grade when the Sandy Hook shooting happened. I was in the 9th grade when Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting happened. Since I heard about Sandy Hook, I have had a fear that this will happen to me or my little sisters. They are 8 and 13. I am tired of being afraid,” said student organizer Jaylin Gemmel of Nipmuc Regional. “The adults that are leading this country have shown that they are not going to change. It’s time to show them that it is the only option.”

All events held April 7:

• District 1: Robert Boland Library, 1350 West St, Pittsfield, MA 7:00-9:00pm
• District 2: Millbury Public Library- 128 Elm St, Millbury, 9:30-11:00 a.m.
• Districts 3 & 6: Joint town hall at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lowell, 657 Middlesex St, Lowell, MA 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
• Districts 4 & 5: Joint town hall at the Kennedy Middle School at 165 Mill St, Natick, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 pm
• District 7 & 8: Joint town hall at the Bolling Building, 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, 1:30-3:30 p.m.

For more on the Town Hall For Our Lives national event, visit the TownHallProject.com

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Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch