Gun Law Advocates Deliver Broken Heart Valentines To Leaders 1 Year After Parkland Shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- One year ago today, a deranged gunman stole 17 innocent and precious lives.
It should have been just another day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Yet, beyond the outrage and grief, grew a movement, which is now a young people's call to action.
WCCO followed students from Henry Sibley High School who'd participate in the "March for our Lives" in Washington.
"Youth and young adults in Minnesota are killing each other and themselves with guns at terrifying rates," Rev. Nancy Nord Bence of Protect Minnesota said.
To remember the day, gun law advocates delivered 1,200 broken heart valentines to state leaders.
House Speaker Melissa Hortman promised sensible gun laws will move in the democratically controlled chamber.
"We have a Minnesota House of Representatives that is ready to act, that heard you, has been hearing you for decades, but really has heard you loudly and clearly over the last year," Hortman said.
Students across the country are taking the lead for obvious reasons. It's a sad classroom reality for Eden Prairie senior Muna Galbayte.
"I wish I'm not sitting there thinking how likely it is if someone came in with a gun, that I'd be shot," Galbayte said.
Then, came a somber reading of 465 names.
"Aaron, male, St. Paul, gun homicide," one activist read.
These were the names of Minnesotans killed by guns in 2017, who were remembered by the soft toll of a bell.