Last Updated Feb 17, 2018 9:48 PM EST
A gun control rally was held in Fort Lauderdale in the wake of the school shooting that left 17 people dead and 15 others injured this week. Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale, joined other elected officials and gun control advocates Saturday afternoon to call for common sense gun laws and firearm safety legislation.
Students from the high school where the massacre took place spoke passionately during Saturday’s rally in front of the federal courthouse, pleading with lawmakers to change the nation’s gun laws.
“Every single person up here today — all these people should be at home grieving — but instead we are up here standing together, because if all our government and president can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it is time for victims to be the change we need to see,” student Emma Gonzalez told CBS News.
Demonstrators attend the March for Action on Gun Violence in Broward County at the U.S. Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S., February 17, 2018.
JOE SKIPPER / REUTERS
Gonzalez spoke at Saturday’s rally.
“We are going to the be the last mass shooting,” she said to cheers. “We are going to change the law, and it is all going to be due to the tireless effort of the school board, the faculty members and most importantly, the students.”
Several students told CBS News’ Jericka Duncan that the rally is only the beginning. Next week, they plan to take their message to the state capital, Tallahassee.
“The fact that we are personally are speaking out this time — I just really hope it makes a difference,” one student said.
At funerals and in the streets of Parkland, Florida, a suburb on the edge of the Everglades, anger has bubbled over at the senselessness of the attack and at the widespread availability of guns.
During a funeral Friday for 18-year-old Meadow Pollack, her father looked down at his daughter’s plain pine coffin and screamed in anguish as Gov. Rick Scott and 1,000 others sat in Temple K’ol Tikvah.
“You killed my kid!” Andrew Pollack yelled, referring to Nikolas Cruz, who is accused of gunning down Meadow and 16 others. “My kid is dead. It goes through my head all day and all night. I keep hearing it. This is just unimaginable that I will never see my princess again.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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