It’s been a week since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead. And in that short amount of time, the teenage survivors have started a movement to turn up the pressure on lawmakers for gun control reforms.
Florida State Representative Jared Moskowitz says we shouldn’t be surprised by how quickly they mobilized.
“This is what America looks like,” he said. “This is how we’ve brought major change in this country before. Groups have risen up and demanded the system change. It just so happens that it’s kids. Maybe we’re not used to that...but if the adults in the room are failing, then let’s listen to our children.”
On Tuesday, just days after the shooting, Florida lawmakers voted down a motion to take up a bill that would ban assault rifles, reflecting the state’s historical reluctance to enact gun control reforms.
“Florida is, unfortunately, the Petri dish for the NRA,” says Moskowitz.
The legislator urged President Trump to live up to his campaign promise and make America great again. He said the commander-in-chief can’t use pushback from Congress as an excuse for not getting things done.
“Just sign an executive order and ban bump stocks,” he said. “Just sign an executive order and deal with background checks.”
The tech-savvy teenagers of Parkland have leveraged social and traditional media to mobilize people across the country. They’ve organized a national “March for our Lives” protest for March 24.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/florida-state-legislator-partisanship-on-gun-control-wont-cut-it).
The U.S. has fully reopened its borders with Mexico and Canada and lifted restrictions on travel that covered most of Europe.
America’s employers stepped up their hiring in October, adding a solid 531,000 jobs, the most since July and a sign that the recovery from the pandemic recession may be overcoming a virus-induced slowdown.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to a fresh pandemic low last week, another sign the job market is healing after last year’s coronavirus recession.
The Federal Reserve made official on Wednesday its plan to wind down the aggressive monthly bond-buying program that has defined the central bank's pandemic response.
Fed watchers are expecting Jerome Powell to announce a timeline for tapering bond purchases on Wednesday afternoon following the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
World leaders are promising to protect the world’s forests, cut methane emissions and help South Africa wean itself off coal at the U.N. climate summit.
A majority of the Supreme Court are signaling that they would allow abortion providers to pursue a court challenge to a Texas law that has virtually ended abortion in the nation’s second-largest state after six weeks of pregnancy.
President Joe Biden is taking a markedly more humble tone for a U.S. leader on climate change.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opened a global climate summit, saying the world is strapped to a “doomsday device.”
Activists are getting a boost from CrowdLobby to press legislators to expand New York's Good Samaritan Law to teach high school students about being proactive in saving their peers from potentially dying of a drug overdose.
