School shootings at forefront of Charlotte March For Our Lives rally
More than 200 people were in Charlotte’s First Ward Park Sunday morning, calling for U.S. gun reform amid the nationwide March For Our Lives rallies taking place over the weekend.
March For Our Lives began in 2018 after 17 students and teachers were shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Over 300 marches were planned this year across the country with the main demonstration held in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.
South Carolina Democrat Matt Vilardebo and his wife Elida, a teacher, arrived in Charlotte for Sunday’s march to advocate for what Vilardebo called “common sense” gun laws like universal background checks.
“We have an obsession with guns and we need to move past that,” Matt Vilardebo, a candidate for S.C. House District 26 in York County said.
He said he’s a gun owner himself and the conversation around weapons needs to be “demystified.” His wife agreed.
“I don’t want to wait for a gunman to get in between me and my students,” Elida Vilardebo said.
Many in attendance who spoke with The Charlotte Observer pointed to the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary School as an example of why stricter gun control is needed. Two teachers and 19 students were killed.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teacher Greyson Roberts, a teacher at Hough High School, said he joined March For Our Lives because he doesn’t want what happened at Uvalde to happen at his school next. He wore a shirt that read “Great Teachers Change Lives” and held a sign referring to political campaign donations from the NRA to North Carolina Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, both Republicans.
As the crowd formed around 11:30, participants shouted “Vote them out!” The rally also had a place for people to register to vote.
Just as the march began from the park to First United Methodist Church in uptown, Burr and Tillis were among a group of bipartisan senators on Sunday to unveil a plan for some gun law changes.
That announcement has been expected since the group of lawmakers formed after the Uvalde school shooting. The Associated Press reported that 10 Republican and 10 Democrats signed a joint statement calling for juvenile criminal records to be available in background checks for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21; more funding for mental health programs and school resource officers; and support for states with “red flag” laws, aimed at temporarily taking away gun ownership rights from potentially violent people.
While the broader March For Our Lives organization and a related lobbying action fund take on a wide range of gun-related issues, the march in Charlotte heavily focused on violence students and teachers face in schools. Many said they want loopholes closed for gun purchase background checks, and that the legal age to buy should be 21 or older.
Meredith Kirkman, a UNC Wilmington student who wants to be a school teacher, said gun control reform is needed so that she’ll feel safe in her future classroom. She was one of many educators or aspiring teachers who made up the crowd Sunday.
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March For Our Lives in Charlotte
The event in Charlotte began at 11 a.m., with speeches in the park from U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, state Sen. Jeff Jackson, former N.C. Rep. Christy Clark, Democratic Charlotte politician Kendrick Cunningham and local activists. The march headed around 12:45 p.m. to First United Methodist Church at Tryon and 8th streets and ended back at the park.
Those attending wrote letters to members of Congress and to the families of the victims of the school shooting in Uvalde.
Charlotte-area Congresswoman Adams, a former professor, said from the podium: “Six hundred and sixty five. That’s the number of children 11 years old and under who lost their lives to gun violence this year. I’m tired of reducing our family, friends and neighbors to numbers.
“Our loved ones are more than statistics.”
In Jackson’s speech, cheers erupted as he read from a news headline of a “potential breakthrough at hand” with the bipartisan deal on gun law changes. He talked about the youth-led movement of March For Our Lives and his support for them.
“The reason why students make such good leaders, is because a lot of them don’t give a damn about Democrats or Republicans,” Jackson said. “They care about not getting shot. It’s not political, it’s practical.”
The organizer of Sunday’s event was 17-year-old Lora Henley, a rising senior at Myers Park High School.
Sisters Mallory and Toni Louis said they attended the march after seeing the children at Uvalde get killed. It made them want to do something to fight for change, they said.
“... The red flag laws should be put in place because it could prevent these shootings from happening,” Mallory Louis said.
Prior to Sunday’s march, students from Trinity Episcopal School and Dilworth Elementary School sat on the ground to make protest signs. One read: “Students should not have to live in fear.” Another said: “Action,” with a strikethrough the words “thoughts” and “prayers.”
Across North Carolina, marches were held Saturday in Asheville, Raleigh and Wilmington. Marches organized in Salisbury and Winston-Salem are taking place Sunday.
This story was originally published June 12, 2022 at 11:10 AM.
