The Clooney’s Go Big & Make Nationwide Student Walk-Out Announcement; NRA Panics

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Last week, Parkland, Florida, became the latest front in the nationwide struggle against gun violence when an expelled student returned to their former school and opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding many more.

en they would not have been able to carry out their attack.

Among the visible expressions of this advocacy are the plans for a march in Washington, D.C., next month that’s meant to push D.C. lawmakers towards the implementation of common sense gun control. Called the “March for Our Lives,” the initiative has been set up in much the same way as the Women’s March, with the website hosting an invitation for those who can’t make it to Washington, D.C., to march in their own communities.

Now, the organizers behind the initiative have George and Amal Clooney on their side, the two of whom are donating half a million dollars to the effort and have announced their plans to attend the March 24 rally in D.C.

A statement provided by George Clooney and reported upon by CNN states:

‘Amal and I are so inspired by the courage and eloquence of these young men and women from Stoneman Douglas High School. Our family will be there on March 24 to stand side by side with this incredible generation of young people from all over the country, and in the name of our children Ella and Alexander, we’re donating $500,000 to help pay for this groundbreaking event. Our children’s lives depend on it.’

The president and other members of the national leadership have yet to act in any significant way towards the end of stopping the massive proliferation of guns in our society, instead choosing in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting to focus on the claimed need to reform our nation’s mental healthcare system in order to stop mass shootings.

His refusals to act have come in the face of repeated calls from survivors of the Parkland shooting and their allies for common sense gun control.

Among those calls was the speech delivered last Saturday at a rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, by student and Parkland shooting survivor Rose Gonzalez. In her speech, Gonzalez, who has been one of the most prominent faces of the post-Parkland calls for gun control, called out the president and other Republican politicians for accepting large amounts of money from the National Rifle Association.

There’s already been a protest in D.C. so far; this past Monday, students and their allies gathered outside the White House to stage a “die-in” protest, lying down on the ground for the three or so minutes it took the Parkland shooter to kill his victims.

It’s not as though these protests, including the soon-to-be-held March for Our Lives, are without cause.

As of the middle of the day on Tuesday, there have been an estimated 2,026 deaths from gun violence in the United States, not including suicides.

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Even still, the president and his allies do nothing.

Featured Image via Frazer Harrison/Getty Images