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).
By midday Wednesday, the Dow had plunged roughly 500 points, before rebounding slightly, while the S&P and Nasdaq Indexes were also down.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, October 2, 2019.
One man was shot in the chest with a live round by police in Hong Kong on Tuesday during widespread and violent protests that coincided with celebrations across China marking 70 years of the Communist state.
The current instability led the Geneva-based organization to cut its forecast for trade volume growth to just 1.2 percent in 2019, an over 50 percent drop from an earlier estimate.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the author of the pending Smithsonian Women's History Museum Act, told Cheddar that it's "difficult to empower women, if you don't even recognize them."
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.*
The latest tally represents about a 50 percent surge in illnesses and deaths since the CDC last took stock of the damage. As illnesses mount, regulators have stopped short of issuing a ban on vaping, recommending instead vape users abstain from vaping until the cause of the illness is identified.
The embattled Justice Department's top official, Attorney General William Barr, and the president's personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, are now under a great deal more scrutiny.
The House of Representatives made history on Wednesday, passing landmark legislation that would protect U.S. banks that provide services to legitimate cannabis businesses in states where cannabis is legal.
As pressure mounts to detect and combat the spread of deepfakes, startups like Canny AI are embracing the technology and attempting to commercialize it.
