(silence)
- Many of the teen survivors say they're tired
of waiting for adults to something about gun control,
so they announced a nation-wide demonstration--
- This is so sad.
- It's so sad.
I don't think anyone deserves to go through something like this.
- (anchor) They announced a nation-wide demonstration.
It's called the "March for Our Lives" and will be held on March 24th.
- I've heard about this. My school's talking about it.
- (reporter) These students, some too young to go to the polls,
are using their voices as their vote.
- It's like it's under such terrible circumstances,
but the fact the students organized like this is so admirable.
- (Delaney) People that I loved died.
- This is heartbreaking.
- (David) This is a turning point in American history.
- (student) I feel like no one listens to us
because we are kids.
- (reporter) And what do you say to that?
- (student) I think that's crap. - Yep.
- (student) I think we should have a voice, too.
- It's great that the students are speaking out.
It's what should be done.
- It's so cool that they're all standing up
and doing that, you know?
They're not just staying quiet about everything that's going on.
- The right to bear arms is our Second Amendment
and I whole-heartedly, you know what I mean,
agree with that, but times have changed
and so I think the laws should change with that.
- It sucks because it had to come down to this,
but it's exciting to see the reactions from all the kids involved
and how they're, you know, trying to change,
pretty much start a revolution and start getting rid
of these stupid-ass guns.
- (Cameron) This isn't about red and blue.
We can't boo people-- - I saw this, with Marco Rubio.
- (Cameron) ...because they're Republicans.
- Yeah, he got his ass chewed out.
- (Cameron) We can't boo people because they're Democrats
and boo people because they're Republicans.
- That's right.
- Preach!
- (Cameron) Anybody who's willing to start to make a difference
is somebody we need on our side here.
- Yeah.
- I agree. It's not a partisan issue.
- (Cameron) Senator Rubio, can you tell me right now
that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA?
(audience roaring) - Wow.
Wow!
- Wow. Calling him out.
- That's right.
And he didn't answer the question.
- (Rubio) You have every right to ask that question of me
and I'm here to tell you--
- (Cameron) Are you going to be accepting money from the NRA?
- Just... (scoffing) - (Rubio) I have always supported--
I will always accept-- - Ugh!
- He's just dodging the question.
- These kids are great because they keep asking
the question until you give me an answer.
- (Rubio) I have told you that I support lifting the age
from 18 to 21 on buying a rifle. - Yes, yes, that's good.
- (Rubio) My understanding, as before I walked out here,
is that organization is not in favor of that.
- It's just so dumb why they can't just say no.
- (Rubio) I don't know what their position is
on teachers being armed, but I don't think they should be.
- Oh, doubletalk!
- (Rubio) I will do what I think is right,
and if people want to support my agenda,
they're welcome to do so, but they buy into my ideas.
I don't buy into theirs. - (wry chuckle)
Politicians will take money from wherever it comes.
- It's not about them buying into your ideas
and you buying into theirs.
If you're accepting money from them, you're accepting their support.
- I thought he said some good things in this,
but they are definitely masters of weaving their words
in a certain way.
- It's kind of hard because the students are coming from
actually being in a school shooting, so it's one far end
of the spectrum to the political standpoint,
which has to take in consideration all of America,
not just people who have experienced these things first hand,
but I think it's really cool that they're actually bring up
this topic and they're having these conversations
because, I mean, it's about time.
- (Emma) The shooter at our school obtained weapons
that he used on us legally. - Emma Gonzales!
- Oh, I love Emma Gonzales.
- (Emma) Do you believe that it should be harder to obtain
these semi-automatic weapons and the modifications for these weapons
to make them fully automatic, like bump stocks?
- No, she doesn't! She's the NRA person.
- (Loesch) First off, Emma, I want to applaud you
for standing up and speaking out. - At least she acknowledges that.
- (Loesch) I, nor the millions of people
that I represent as a part of this organization,
that I'm here speaking for, none of us support
people who are crazy-- - They support getting that money.
- (Loesch) ...none of us support people who are crazy,
who are a danger to themselves-- - Exactly.
I think it's a mental health thing, for sure.
- (Loesch) Because I have kids, and I'm not just fighting for my kids.
I'm fighting for you.
How was he able to pass a background check?
- She didn't even answer the question.
- (Loesch) He was able to pass the background check
because we have a system that's flawed.
- Very flawed.
- (Emma) I think I'm gonna interrupt you real quick
and remind you-- - Atta girl.
- Yeah, she's avoiding the question.
- (Emma) Do you believe it should be harder
to obtain these semi-automatic weapons
and modifications to make them fully automatic,
such as bump stocks? - Yeah!
- I love this 'cause she's just like you're not actually
answering my question.
- (Loesch) The President ordered the DOJ to look into it.
- (Emma) I'm asking your opinion as a representative--
- Yes, Emma!
- (Loesch) ...NRA's position has been. - Damn.
- (Loesch) The NRA came-- - (Emma) What's yours?
- (Loesch) I'm talking for them, the 5 million members...
- Well done! - (Loesch) ...we're representing.
- These kids are kind of angsty.
Not gonna lie, they're not really listening
to what she's saying.
- (Israel) I understand you're standing up for the NRA
and I understand that's what you're supposed to do,
but you just told this group of people that you are standing up for them.
You're not standing up for them-- - You're not standing up for them.
- (Israel) ...I want less weapons!
- It's all they would do, is avoid the serious question,
because they don't want to offend or say anything
that won't get them money.
- She was, in some way, answering her question.
She wasn't just ignoring the question.
She was answering it, but they wanted a clear yes or no,
and since she wasn't giving that to them,
they just weren't hearing what she was saying at all.
It's important to hear people out and have actual conversations about it.
- This changes the perspective that a lot of adults have on teens.
Just because it's like-- they're not these lazy high schoolers
who just worry about themselves.
They're here as the activist generation.
- In the way that our society is functioning right now,
something as delicate as this needs to be handled
by our generation that are the victims.
I'm really proud of our generation for the fact that
we're actually getting a lot of attention for this right now.
- (Sam) I just want to take a second first to thank you
for having me, Mr. President.
I want to feel safe at school. - Seriously.
My mom, the other day, was like,
"I'm so glad you're not in school anymore
because it's just so scary."
- (Sam) I turned 18 the day after,
(choking up) woke up to the news that my best friend was gone.
- That's traumatizing.
- This makes me so sad.
- (Sam) And I don't understand why I could still go in a store
and buy a weapon of war, an AR.
- Our babies are buying weapons of war at 18.
- (Sam) How did we not stop this after Columbine,
after Sandy Hook?
I'm sitting with a mother that lost her son.
It's still happening.
- To me, lives have been lost because of this.
- Our priorities are in the wrong place.
- (Sam) In Australia, there was a shooting at a school in 1999.
You know, after that, they took a lot of ideas,
they put legislation together, and they stopped it.
- Yeah.
- (Sam) Can anyone here guess how many shootings
there have been in schools since then in Australia?
Zero. - Zero.
That's right, baby. Zero.
- (Sam) Zero. - Yeah, that's a good point.
- (Sam) We need to do something. That's why we're here.
- This is so heavy.
I mean, as a teacher on top of it, this is heavy.
This is hard.
- Very good point, but unfortunately, they don't realize that
some of the mindsets that are in control
aren't going to allow things like that.
- I saw this during the last week and it's just still so awful and raw.
It's just painful. Painful.
- All over the world, there's shootings that happened,
and they went and made laws, and they stopped it.
It makes me mad.
- (Emma) Companies trying to make caricatures
of the teenagers nowadays, saying that all we are--
- There is she is again. Heck yeah.
- (sighing) Okay, I saw this.
- This is a video that went off on Twitter.
- (Emma) And hush us into submission when our message
doesn't reach the ears of the nation.
We are prepared to call BS!
Politicians--
- Emma has become such a powerhouse.
- (Emma) Politicians who sit in their gilded House
and Senate seats funded by the NRA... - Look at her go.
- (Emma) ...telling us nothing could have ever been done
to prevent this, we call BS! - She is fired up.
- (Emma) They say a good guy with a gun
stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS!
- Let's go.
- (Emma) They say guns are just tools like knives,
and are as dangerous as cars.
We call BS! - (crowd) BS!
- (Emma) That us kids don't know what we're talking about...
- You don't have the life experiences.
- (Emma) ...that we're too young to understand
how the government works. - Yes, girl.
- (Emma) We call BS! - BS, it's bull[bleep].
- (Emma) If you agree, register to vote.
Contact your local congresspeople-- - That's right.
- (Emma) Give them a piece of your mind!
- Jeez. And you hear, especially with all these students
who have been organizing from Florida,
it's like you hear the actual rawness and emotion behind them.
They've survived this awful tragedy, and now they're trying
to do something with it and it's frustrating
when legislators aren't listening to them.
- You'd think they would do something after the club,
you'd think they'd do something after Sandy Hook,
you'd think they'd do something after even Columbine
but they don't because of money.
- People say it's time for thoughts and prayers right now,
but it's not.
It's time to actually directly address the issue
and start talking about gun control.
- I get what she's saying, but it's not, to me,
it's not the gun that kills the people.
It's the person with the mental health issue
who picks up a gun and decides to go and murder
as many people as they can.
There should just be a strict screening process
and a full evaluation to anyone who buys a weapon.
- If we're not to the point where we think there's something wrong
with the system, then shame on us.
- (FBE) So it's not possible for us to cover all of the angles
with this, so we'll only be able to scratch the surface
of this complex issue for this episode.
- Oh, of course.
- (FBE) FBE has discussed gun control in the U.S. over the years
and, sad to say, the issue has not had much change.
- No.
- (FBE) So we'll focus more on the movement
that is beginning to rise, rather than gun control itself,
but do you feel like there has been any change
in this country from school shootings over the last five,
10, or 15 plus years?
- It's kind of crazy because, I mean, things are changing,
but I don't even know if it's for the better.
With the proposals that we should arm teachers,
there's changes, but not in the right direction.
- The worst nightmares that I've had are the ones that have
been about school shootings, where I've dreamt about
having to hide behind a desk or hide into a closet,
and it's something that students are actually going through.
That's the rational, where it's like, Oh, no, we don't have
to actually fix the guns. Guns don't kill people.
"People kill people" is the argument that I hear
over and over again.
- These kids, and now teachers like myself,
have to be looking over our shoulders all the time.
I can't focus completely on teaching because I'm concerned about this.
- Not until my age demographic hits that age requirement
to become a member of office, so give it another 10, 20 years.
That's when real change is gonna happen,
because right now, all politicians are too money hungry
and to self-indulged with themselves to do anything about it.
- (FBE) We know that you are a gun owner yourself.
What is your stance when you hear people
talking about this issue?
- Well, I can see their frustration.
The best defense against evil men is good men
skilled in violence, and if good men are allowed
and can, we can stop these situations.
The more good people that have guns, the less likely that bad people
will be able to get away with as much.
- (FBE) So as a teen in high school right now,
how have the school shootings affected your school experience
or view of living in the country?
- Someone brought up in class the idea of us having bullet-proof cabinets
so that if a school shooting was to happen,
we'd have something to protect ourselves with,
which is crazy that we'd even have to think of installing
bullet-proof cabinets in our high school
so that we would be protected, when we're supposed to feel safe.
- The day after, we had to practice a lockdown drill.
And it's a little crazy.
I get it.
The drills are safety and they're mandatory,
but if there's actually a shooter on campus,
I am not running to a classroom.
I'm getting out of there as quick as I can.
- We actually had an incident about a week or two weeks before
the shooting, where there was a gunman running around the streets
near our school and we were put on lockdown
for about two or three hours.
It made all of us realize that we weren't prepared.
My school has enforced more safety protocols,
and now we know where we're gonna go
if someone does come into the building,
and it's scary.
- (FBE) From your generation, when you were a teenager in school,
were school shootings an issue, and was the gun debate
kind of the same, or have you watched this
evolve over the years? - Never.
I can't think of any situations occurring like that.
Extremely, extremely rare.
- I never remember feeling unsafe in school.
When I was growing up, we had atomic bomb drills,
so, you know, there was a different fear as a student
for my generation.
- (FBE) As a parent raising kids, how does this issue affect
how you view the safety of your own children?
- Oh, you think about it all the time.
I teach on what we would call an open campus.
Anybody can enter that campus at any point.
We're trying to up mental health resources and things like that,
and we're doing our best there, but it's just not happening.
- (FBE) In what feels like a larger way
than in previous tragedies, the survivors of the Parkman shooting
have been getting vocal in the streets and on social media,
and have sparked a new movement, which is part of
the March for Our Lives.
- Yeah, I've heard of March for Our Lives.
I mean, it's all over social media.
At least in my area, we are trying to organize
a March for Our Lives on our city hall.
- (FBE) They're asking students and supporters
to walk out of schools on March 24th to demand that lawmakers
put an end to gun violence and mass shootings.
- Lawmakers can't do that.
That's just to show off their frustration,
to have these rallies and think they're gonna do something.
It's not gonna have any effect.
People that are educators, that are scholars,
that are professors, they don't have the mentality
of what it takes to really stop things like this.
They're focused on the only thing they know.
Their way of life is teaching.
- (FBE) What do you think about the way
that these survivors have been organizing
in the aftermath of this tragedy?
- I mean, I think that it's awesome that they're actually standing up.
I'm not really one for marches because I'm like
what does it really solve besides raising awareness,
but if it raises even more awareness, then, I mean, all power to them.
- A lot of the times, kids my age feel like they don't have a voice.
That's a lame excuse because you can advocate for anything
and your voice really does count.
- I incredibly support them and I respect them.
The March for Our Lives, I think that's a perfect name for them,
just because of the fact, from what I've seen,
they've been willing to stop at nothing in order
to achieve their goal.
- I have great admiration for them and I'm hoping that
that energy will be the energy that does make a change.
- People try to invalidate the comments and attitudes
of teenagers because they say we're too young,
we can't even vote.
We're the next generation.
So it's important that we have our own opinions
and we voice our opinions on these matters.
- (FBE) Why do you think the issue of gun control
has been such a difficult issue for this country
to figure out and solve?
- The middle ground can't be reached because both sides
don't want to reach that middle ground.
They are too selfish in what they want.
- We need to be able to somehow voice our opinions
without completely keeping the other out of the conversation,
which is why I thought it was important,
when we had the town hall in Florida, that Marco Rubio was there
and that the legislators from Florida were also there,
so they were both representing the Democrats and Republicans.
- You have a small amount of people acting like they're
the majority of the people, trying to run something,
and they've been running it because of greed,
because of money.
They don't care about people getting killed.
They care about the almighty dollar.
- These big companies and organizations can fund money
and they have puppets in political places,
and when you have puppets in political places,
things that even common sense laws that we need,
that could be put into place, are not being pushed through.
As someone who does support the right to have guns,
I do think there are changes that need to be made.
- Everyone believes in the Second Amendment
that says, yes, we have the right to bear arms,
but the logic has to prevail that says that does not mean assault weapons.
Here's what always happens.
We have the shooting, everyone feels badly about it,
and a week later, we're done.
And I think this has legs and I don't think
these kids are going to let it go.
- (FBE) Finally, I'd hope we can all agree
that no one wants to see these tragedies continue to happen,
so where do you think we go from here?
- Well, I think they need to definitely make it harder
for anybody who wants to get a gun, to get a gun
to what levels somebody is mentally or not mentally capable,
and passing a more stricter level of training
and not making it easy.
"Oh, I can buy a gun first and then go get some training."
No, I believe that should be in reverse.
- Taking away all the guns isn't gonna solve the problem
because it's not the gun necessarily that's killing all the people.
Like I said, it's the person behind the gun.
So I think that there needs to be something done
with mental health and I think there needs to be
reformation with guns as well.
Not everyone should be able to get a gun.
That's just common sense to me.
- Fewer guns.
And there's research that says fewer guns, fewer problems.
- We start with changing the age limit.
I know it won't really stop anyone from getting what they want,
but I think it's a start.
- We go exactly where we're going, which is, you know,
the movement is picking up.
Everybody has to do their part.
I don't care if you retweet the tweet that needed to be tweeted.
You know what I mean? That's your part.
- As kids have grown up with this, I think we're all coming together,
one way or another, and I think we'll stop it.
- People, if they want to make an impact,
they can march for their lives on March 24th.
That's at any major city, really.
If they don't have one in their city, they should create it.
March 14th, there's a school walkout at 10:00 AM.
They could participate in that,
17 minutes for each one of the people who were killed.
And then, on April 20th, I've also heard speak of another walkout.
So if anyone is wanting to participate,
there are three different dates for movements
and they can participate in any of them to make an impact.
(silence)