For our 3 fieldwork we watched a documentary called After Parkland it was about the school shooting in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. I learned that a 19-year-old boy named Nikolas Cruz who opened fire on 34 students. He killed 17 people and injured 17 others. It was very horrifying to learn about this school shooting and I think we all learned a lot from looking at this documentary.

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During our first fieldwork we interviewed the founder of Millions Moms March, Donna Dees who then connected us to Angela Webber who works in the organization; Newtown Action Alliance. The Newtown Action Alliance is a national all volunteer organization made from groups of advocates, families of victims, survivors, etc. The organization which was created to raise awareness about gun violence in the U.S, was formed after the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting that took place on December 14th, 2012.
The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting is considered one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S history and took the lives of 20 children, 6 adults and injured 2. Before the school shooting itself, the shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza began his attack by killing his mother, Nancy Lanza in their home located in Newtown. She was shot 4 times with a .22-caliber rifle which she had purchased along with an AR-15 and several other firearms which was then used later on by Adam Lanza. After gathering the AR-15, two semi automatic pistols and a shotgun (that he left in his car), he proceeded to drive to the Sandy Hook Elementary school and enter at just after 9:30 am by shooting through a window. Adam Lanza fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes, claiming 26 lives with the majority being children. After officers c89ame to the scene (alerted by an emergency call from the school) they found Adam Lanza dead near a classroom after taking his own life with a handgun. So many innocent lives were taken in just a short amount of time because of one person’s easy access to multiple guns. If his mother did not purchase those guns, 26 lives could have been saved, although there is the high possibility that he would still have found an easy way to acquire a firearm.
During our lunch and lobby we were introduced and greeted very warmly by many other activists through zoom. We then received a script and a list of senators to call. The script’s major goal was to persuade the senators to cosponsor the Assault Weapons Ban which bans the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices. The Assault Weapons Ban’s main purpose was to prohibit guns used in the recent Monterey park shooting.
After practicing the script a couple of times, Zoe and I called half the phone numbers while Gunnar, Kai and Eliezer called the other half. During our calls, we were often sent straight to voicemail or to the senator’s assistants/office. Although it took us a while to perfect what we were going to say, we were able to successfully transfer our message and practice talking to people professionally. During this whole process of our first time lobbying, we were able to learn about more ways people, especially young teenagers like us can be more effective or how to use our voice to make change. We also learned more about certain gun laws that are being passed in the senate and overall have started to obtain more information about our topic.

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Last week, my group and I watched the documentary, “After Parkland.” After Parkland is a documentary about different students and their families sharing their personal stories of trauma and loss in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Also known as the “Parkland Shooting.” The shooting occurred on February 14, 2018. The shooter was a 19-year-old boy named Nikolas Cruz who opened fire on students, and killed 17 people, injuring 17 others. When I was watching, I felt really heartbroken listening to different families talk about how their kids were killed in the shooting. We were introduced to some activists that are currently helping to prevent gun violence from happening, such as David Hogg, and X González. They are both apart of the youth-lead movement called March For Our Lives. It is dedicated to promoting community engagement, education, and direct action by youth to help eliminate gun violence. I was really interested in one of his quotes. He compared our congress to a sports game, “The referee is being bribed in favor of one team, so we need to change the ref.” Hogg is referring to congress as the refs and the two teams being democrats and republicans. We can “change the refs” by electing different people into congress. Overall, this was a great documentary and I believe that it will inspire whoever watches it to create change.

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This week my group and I watched a documentary called After Parkland. It was about the lives of people who were somehow intertwined with the parkland shooting and how their lives changed after. The documentary records this experience in a moving and memorable way. Once you’ve seen it, you have a deeper understanding of the significance of this type of tragedy than you did before, and that’s important. My group and I now have a stronger grasp on what are topic is and I feel as though this was very impactful to us.

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The next field work we did was joining a Lunch and Lobby with the host Angela Weber. During the lunch and lobby we were given a script and a list of Senators phone numbers to call. We were trying to send a message to the Senators that open carry should not be allowed. When they answered we told them that open carry should not happen and the office said that pass this information to the senator I found it interesting that we got to call the office of the Senators.

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Today, our group went lobbying. We were going to be calling about the Assault Weapons Ban. Donna Dees introduced us to Angela Weber, who is a woman that works for the organization, Newtown Action Alliance. She was the one who invited us to go lobbying. On the zoom call, she introduced us to her organization and what we were going to do. We were given a list of senators, along with their numbers to call. Me, Eliezer, and Gunnar decided to split up from Beni and Zoe to do our calls. We did half of the senators, while they did the other half. We were given scripts about the recent shooting in Monterey Park. We were encouraging the senators to help cosponsor the ban. I thought that this was a lot of fun, and hope to do it again.

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Last week, on January 17th we interviewed Donna Dee, the founder of Million Moms March; one of the largest protests against gun violence in US history. The march took place in Washington DC on Mothers Day, may 14, 2000 with a crowd of over one million people protesting for Gun Laws. Over the years, she has continued promoting gun violence prevention, wrote a memoir called “looking for a Few Good Moms: How one mom rallied a million others against the gun lobby” that earned an award, and co directed/produced the award winning documentary “five awake” about five Louisiana women who set out to strengthen domestic violence laws.

During the interview, Donna elaborated on Gun Carry Laws and the many lives taken by mass and school shootings. Many of us including myself assumed that guns used for mass shootings were predominantly bought legally. However, Donna explained that a study from the U.S Secret Service found 76% of school shooters got their guns from either their home or from relatives. She also talked about the issue where families who own guns don’t always lock them up properly. About eight kids die a day or are injured from improperly stored guns and this statistic alone emphasizes the fact we must also advocate for safe storage laws along with firm gun laws.

Donna was very informative and we were able to learn a lot from just this interview. She also connected us with the Newton Action Alliance where we joined a lunch and lobby on January 23rd. For our first fieldwork, I found it quite successful and we received more information on ways to stop gun violence.

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This week my group and I went lobbying. This week my group and I went lobbying. We met a woman named Angila Webber and she invited us to lobby with her and her organization. We joined a zoom and were greeted by many others who had also signed up with us. My group and I were given a list of names of senators and their phone numbers. Gunner, Kai, and Elizer decided to split up and call the senators on half the list while Beni and I called the other half. We mostly spoke to people through voicemails or assistants who picked up the phone. I think I learned a lot about how to talk and convince people and also more about gun laws that are being passed in the senate. We did it with an organization called the Newtown Action Alliance. I think it was overall a very fun and informative experience.

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We had an interview with Donna Dees and had lunch and lobby with Angela Weber. Donna Dees did the million moms march and Angela Weber is an interviewer about school shooting. By interviewing them I learned that 76% of people get guns from family or home, Donna also had a gun violence death in her family.

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Last Tuesday, my group and I were able to interview the founder of Millions Mom March, Donna Dees. I always believed that the guns used for mass shootings were bought legally almost all the time. While that may be true in some instances Donna told us about a study the U.S. Secret Service did where the found that 76% of school shooters got the gun from home or from relatives. This emphasizes the fact that in order to stop gun violence we need to not only advocate for tighter gun laws but we also have to advocate for safe storage laws. Our interview with Donna has shifted my views on how we can stop gun violence and I’m very glad we were able to interview her.

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Today, my group and I were able to go to an online lobby where we were able to call undecided senators about the Assault Weapons Ban. We were given a script to use for the calls and in the script we talked about the recent shooting on Sunday in Monterey Park. We urged the senators to cosponsor the ban since the gun used in the shooting would have been banned if the legislation was passed. I had a great time doing this and I am glad I was able to directly take action for my social justice issue.

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Last week we interviewed Donna Dees. Donna is an activist agents gun violence. She also organized the Millon Moms March which was a march on Washington in protest of gun violence. She talked to us about gun carry laws and how many children and teachers are losing their lives because of looser gun carry laws. She explained to us about families she has known that lost their children and how that affected them. She also gave us a good field work that we volunteered for next week.

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