On February 17th 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student, Joaquin Oliver, victim of one of the deadliest mass shootings in history, was laid to rest in Parkland, Florida.
He was wearing a Dwayne Wade jersey.
PARKLAND, Fla. —Before he was gunned down in a mass shooting at a Florida high school, 17-year-old Joaquin Oliver was excited about Dwyane Wade’s return to the Miami Heat.
His parents revealed Sunday on Univision talk show “Al Punto” that Joaquin Oliver was buried Feb. 17 in his Wade basketball jersey.
Deeply moved, NBA star Dwyane Wade served notice to the NRA and their mouthpieces in one powerful tweet:
6 years prior on February 26th, 2012, 17 year old Trayvon Martin was gunned down as he walked through his relatives’ gated community. Both the Trayvon Martin and Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school tragedies occurred in Florida, a state with some of the most lax gun safety laws including the controversial Stand Your Ground law that played a role in the Trayvon Martin shooting and the acquittal of the murderer.
Florida along with other states with few gun safety laws, have become killing fields due to a stranglehold the NRA has on Republicans. In Florida, Republicans control both the state legislature and the governorship.
FLORIDA LED THE NATION IN MASS SHOOTINGS IN 2016, WITH 92 KILLED AND 194 WOUNDED.
NRA wants more gunslingers in the nation’s bloodiest mass-shooting state
Florida racked up 92 deaths and 194 wounded in mass shootings in 2016, led by the single bloodiest firearm incident in our bloody national history on June 12, when 29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 and wounded another 53 in a gun rampage at an Orlando nightclub. After a three-hour standoff, a police bullet added Mateen’s death to the night’s body count.
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Meanwhile, 2017 started off with a bang, after a deranged gunman killed five and wounded six others at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Jan. 6. Then, on Monday, gunmen denigrated the Martin Luther King Day celebration in northwest Miami-Dade County, leaving eight wounded, most of them youngsters.
You’d think that these eruptions of gun horrors would sober Tallahassee’s gun mavens, if for no other reason than that Florida’s economy is utterly dependent on tourism. Eleven bullet-riddled bodies along an airport luggage carousel is not a postcard image apt to please the visitors and convention bureau.
One would think that, “these eruptions of gun horrors would sober Tallahassee’s gun mavens,” but nothing was done. And another mass shooting soon followed.
The February 14th, 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting that left 17 dead and 14 injured is one of the most deadly shootings in history due to the fact the gunman was able to legally purchase an semi-automatic assault rifle, a weapon once banned in the U.S. and previously reserved for use in war. “The AR was designed for speedy reloading in combat situations, and it can fire dozens of rounds in seconds.” In just six minutes, the Parkland shooter was able to single handedly gun down 33 people.
The AR-15, designed for mass killings, is being pushed into the hands of civilians by the gun violence profiteering NRA and the Republican politicians who do their bidding.
The N.R.A. Lobbyist Behind Florida’s Pro-Gun Policies
During an interview with CNN, Governor Scott, a Republican who has never taken a position contrary to that of the N.R.A., said, “Everything’s on the table.” Still, Moskowitz was keeping his expectations within reason. “They’re not going to ban assault weapons,” he said. “But I have to bring these parents something. I have to show them we didn’t ignore what happened.” Survivors of the shooting, along with thousands of other protesters, have travelled to Tallahassee to urge the Governor and other elected officials to pass gun-control legislation. At a town hall convened by CNN, Senator Marco Rubio, who has received a grade of A-plus from the N.R.A., refused to stop accepting donations from the organization. He was loudly jeered.
And the jeers are growing louder. The Trayvon Martin and Marjory Stoneman Douglas tragedies which sparked two powerful youth led movements to end violence, #BLM and #NeverAgain, are part of a growing “Moral Movement against Violence.”
As Robert Reich states in his recent essay, “The Moral Movement against Violence” is being “led by people whose moral authority cannot be denied.”
A moral movement is growing against violence, and the abuses of power that foster and tolerate it, is growing.
It is being led by people whose moral authority cannot be denied: students whose friends have been murdered, women who have been abused, the parents and partners of black men who have been slain.
It is already having a profound impact on America.
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Preventing gun violence is coming to be seen less as an issue of “gun rights” and more about public morality.
Be the change.