One month after the deadly shooting inside a high school in Parkland, Florida, high school students across the nation are planning to stage walkouts today to protest gun violence.
Organizers say nearly 3,000 walkouts are set in the biggest demonstration yet of the student activism that has emerged following the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Students from the elementary to college level are taking up the call in a variety of ways. Some planned roadside rallies to honor shooting victims and protest violence. Others were to hold demonstrations in school gyms or on football fields. In Massachusetts and Ohio, students said they'll head to the statehouse to lobby for new gun regulations.
The coordinated walkout was organized by Empower, the youth wing of the Women's March, which brought thousands to Washington, D.C., last year. The group urged students to leave class at 10 a.m. local time for 17 minutes - one minute for each victim in the Florida shooting.
AirTalk checks in with KPCC reporters stationed at two SoCal high schools covering the walkout. We’ll also look at gun legislations that the CA lawmakers are planning to introduce in the state after the Parkland shooting.
With files from Associated Press.
With guest host Libby Denkmann.
Guests:
Matt Dangelantonio, AirTalk producer covering the walkouts at Blair Middle School and Blair High School in Pasadena; he tweets
Patrick McGreevy, reporter for the Los Angeles Times who covers the California Legislature out of the Sacramento bureau