Hundreds of Bay Area students have rallied together to head to the state’s capitol where they will sit down with lawmakers to discuss gun control measures.
They’ve done the research and now need help with getting there.
It’s spring break and instead of taking time off, these teens are taking on a big project.
They have been pushed by mass shootings across the United States but also gun violence close to home.
So they’ve dedicated four hours a day for more than two weeks to research the state’s gun laws they plan to bring up in scheduled meetings at the capitol.
These East Bay teens have been brought together by a cause to fight for gun control.
The two are part of a newly launched group called Bay Area Student Activists. In two weeks, the group has grown to 350 students from 35 different schools.
“The Sandy Hook kids were around the same age as my brother and the Parkland victims were my age and it’s terrifying to think that something like that can happen to any of us,” Elina Juvonen tells KRON4. “Also living in the Bay Area there are kids that are constantly in fear of gun violence in their streets or walking home from school and it shouldn’t be that way so it’s something very personal.”
The teens say they were inspired by students like themselves impacted by the Florida school shooting who instead of mourning quietly, stood up to lawmakers demanding tighter restrictions on firearms.
So instead of demonstrating they have scheduled meetings with more than a dozen assemblymen and staffers in Sacramento to present their concerns and solutions.
“Students are not going to be silent and we are the next generation of voting,” Ruby Baden-Lasar said. “And we are actually interested in laws and we are not just making a statement with a protest but we are here to sit down and see actual legislation that we want to see.”
The Bay Area student activists have launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for the buses they’ll need to get to the state’s capitol.
They’ve raised more than $3,500 but say each bus costs $2,000. Each bus seats 55 of them including a chaperon.
The Bay Area student activists will specifically ask lawmakers to raise the age to 21 for people who want to own a long gun, to waive a fee for victims that try to block a person they see as a threat from owning a gun, and for law enforcement report confiscated firearms into a database within three days.