{"id":2707,"date":"2018-04-04T14:06:04","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T19:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bowdoinglobalist.com\/?p=2707"},"modified":"2023-12-11T14:07:38","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T14:07:38","slug":"why-i-marched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/americas\/why-i-marched\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Marched"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2738\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2738\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2738\" src=\"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Gun Control March - Photo by Holly Lyne\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2018\/04\/IMG_6809-1.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2738\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Holly Lyne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On Saturday, March 24, I was honored to participate in Brunswick, Maine\u2019s March For Our Lives. Hundreds of peaceful protestors of all ages gathered on the town commons, demanding reform of gun control laws. We marched with colorful signs and chants such as \u201cHey hey, ho ho! The NRA has got to go!\u201d My personal favorite chant was directed at politicians accepting NRA money and refusing to implement common sense gun laws: \u201cVote them out!\u201d Brunswick High School students spoke with unbelievable poise, and a pastor from First Parish blessed the crowd. We sang Woody Guthrie\u2019s \u201cThis Land is Your Land,\u201d a poignant choice at a moment when we all hope to one day live in a land free of the scourge of assault weapons and gun violence. In order to further the dialogue around American gun culture and disseminate data about gun violence, I have compiled ten reasons (among many possible and compelling others) for why I participated in the March For Our Lives.<\/p>\n<p>I marched because\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gunviolencearchive.org\/\">3,286 Americans<\/a> have been killed by guns within the first eighty-five days of 2018. Read that sentence again.<\/li>\n<li>Only one \u201cinstant background check,\u201d taking less than an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/03\/02\/world\/international-gun-laws.html?smid=fb-share\">hour<\/a>, is required to buy a gun in America; yet, because this check is not required by federal law when buying a gun from a private seller, roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetrace.org\/2015\/10\/private-sale-loophole-background-check-harvard-research\/\">one-third<\/a> of American gun owners buy their weapon without any background check.<\/li>\n<li>Background checks for gun purchasers as they exist today are failing miserably. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2015\/10\/03\/us\/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html\">nineteen<\/a> recent mass shootings, \u201cat least nine gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prevent them from obtaining their weapons.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bradycampaign.org\/key-gun-violence-statistics\">Forty-six<\/a> American children and teens die every day due to gunshots: \u201c\u2026in murders, assaults, suicides &amp; suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/10\/03\/americas\/us-gun-statistics\/index.html\">As CNN writes,<\/a> \u201cAmericans own nearly half of the estimated six hundred fifty million civilian-owned guns worldwide.\u201d For context, as of March 2018, the United States constitutes approximately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/popclock\/\">4.7%<\/a> of the global population.<\/li>\n<li>As the Everytown For Gun Safety website writes, \u201cBlack Americans make up <a href=\"https:\/\/everytownresearch.org\/gun-violence-by-the-numbers\/#foot_note_anchor_9\">fourteen percent<\/a> of the U.S. population, but are victims of more than half of all gun homicides.\u201d Gun violence in communities of color, especially the shootings perpetrated in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/cards\/police-brutality-shootings-us#share\">acts of police brutality<\/a>, <b>must<\/b> be addressed.<\/li>\n<li>According to Everytown for Gun Safety, \u201cNearly <a href=\"https:\/\/everytownresearch.org\/gun-violence-by-the-numbers\/#foot_note_anchor_9\">two-thirds<\/a> (sixty-two percent) of firearm deaths in the U.S. are suicides.\u201d This mental health crisis and its intersection with American gun culture <b>needs<\/b> to be immediately addressed.<\/li>\n<li>Given that \u201cAmerica\u2019s gun homicide rate is more than <a href=\"https:\/\/everytownresearch.org\/gun-violence-by-the-numbers\/#foot_note_anchor_9\">twenty-five times<\/a> the average of other high-income countries,\u201d are we <b>really<\/b> living in \u201cthe land of the free?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>In 1791, the Second Amendment was written about single-shot muskets. In 2018, some of the weapons commercially available to United States consumers are semi-automatic rifles such as the <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/5160267\/gun-used-florida-school-shooting-ar-15\/\">AR-15<\/a>, which was used in mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, Aurora, Colorado, San Bernadino, California, Pulse Nightclub, and Sandy Hook Elementary School, to name a few. While fully automatic assault rifles can only legally be sold to the police or the military, legislature does not yet restrict additions such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/bump-fire-stock-ar-15-stephen-paddock-guns-deadlier\/\">\u201cbump stocks\u201d<\/a> that can make a semi-automatic gun perform as an automatic gun. <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/376246-senators-introduce-bill-to-ban-bump-stocks\">President Trump<\/a> wants to regulate the sale of bump stocks, whereas other senators want to ban it entirely.<\/li>\n<li>I do not want to live in fear of my future children being shot for walking into their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/interactive\/2012\/12\/us\/sandy-hook-timeline\/index.html\">kindergarten classroom<\/a>. I know criminals will continue to commit crimes and kill people regardless of our gun laws; it is na\u00efve to expect otherwise. But without guns, especially assault rifles, so easily accessible, <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.bostonglobe.com\/opinion\/graphics\/2018\/03\/seven-steps\/\">fewer Americans would be killed.<\/a> <b>Gun control is a humanitarian cause, not a political one.<\/b> I am sick of Americans dying, and that is why I marched.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday, March 24, I was honored to participate in Brunswick, Maine\u2019s March For Our Lives. Hundreds of peaceful protestors of all ages gathered on the town commons, demanding reform of gun control laws. We marched with colorful signs and chants such as \u201cHey hey, ho ho! The NRA has got to go!\u201d My personal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":691,"featured_media":2737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[168],"class_list":{"0":"post-2707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-americas","8":"tag-gun-violence","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}