One million American Students March Against The Use Of Firearms

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"Go out and vote, go out and register in the electoral census" , was the last thing that was heard on the stage of the March for Our Lives, in Washington . It was said by Emma Gonzalez , one of the student leaders who emerged from the massacre at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland , Florida, in which 17 people died at the hands of a former student of the center. Gonzalez, who has stood out for his speeches loaded with emotion, snatched the microphone from Jennifer Hudson, the singer who closed the proceedings (her mother, brother and nephew died in a shooting in 2008), to once again impinge on the great goal of the mobilization: that there is a political change in the USA. that allows a better regulation on access to weapons.

The opportunity is in a not too distant horizon, in the legislative elections of November , which will completely renew the House of Representatives and part of the Senate . Students and organizations in favor of restricting access to weapons have heated up the debate at a time when Republican and Democratic candidates are fighting in the primaries of their parties to try to be elected in the fall. The tragedy of Parkland, the students' march and their impact on public opinion will force candidates to position themselves in the debate during the campaign.

It is something that the Women's March of last year did not achieve , a mobilization with much more force in the streets of the USA, but which lacked a clear political objective and elections around the corner to materialize it . It was celebrated on January 21, 2017, with demonstrations around the world, commanded by one of historic proportions in Washington. It was a day after Donald Trump's inauguration on the same stage, and it seemed more an angry reaction to the election of the New York billionaire than a concrete mobilization.

On Saturday, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, the reference to the political muscle of the March for Our Lives was constant. Along with attacks on the National Rifle Association (NRA ), the main "lobby" of the arms industry, the most repeated cries were the calls to vote in November. "Let's take them to votes" was the most repeated shout in the march and in the thousands of posters of the protesters were read calls to vote only to those who have in their program the regulation of weapons and attacked those who receive funding from the NRA .

Troops in Iraq
The hope for the defenders of the cause is that the arms debate becomes a matter that turns Congress upside down, as has happened on previous occasions: the presence of troops in Iraq recovered both houses for the Democrats in 2006 , Obama lost the total majority in 2010 for health reform and the two chambers in 2016, in the face of popular disaffection at the end of his presidency.

Among those who are playing his seat is Marco Rubio , a Republican senator from Florida. Rubio has had to position himself since the Parkland massacre for a double reason: it happened in the state that he represents and has had the NRA as financial support for his campaigns, like many Republican politicians. The senator was exposed to public opinion at a community meeting televised by CNN shortly after the shooting, where he heard the recriminations of high school students and parents of victims, but he remained firm in not breaking his relationship with the NRA.

This weekend, after the massive march, he recalled that there are "many Americans" who do not support greater regulation of access to weapons and who "also want to avoid massive shootings" without undermining the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. (the one that enshrines the right to bear arms). Rubio's position makes clear his political commitment: access to weapons is a very polarized issue in the United States. and that there are millions of people - also in Florida, a state where guns are popular - that do not want to be touched , even though they do not go out.

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