California Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom is scheduled to take part in Saturday’s March for Our Lives (and against gun violence) Saturday in Santa Ana.
The Centennial Park march is one of more than 600 happening in every state, with students and survivors of gun violence having organized the events.
“For years, there has been no action taken on the issue of gun violence,” explains Estelle Lee, a student organizer with the Orange County march. “Shooting after shooting was swept under a rug once the news cycle was over.
“That’s why we, the students, have taken things into our own hands. We don’t want guns at our schools. We want books. We want a safe environment where we can learn. We will not be standing idly by while bullets tear open our peers.”
The national day of action aims to convince lawmakers “to make students’ lives and safety a priority by passing common-sense gun safety legislation,” according to the organizers. Besides Newsom, speakers include Kimberly Claytor, a Newport-Mesa Unified School District teacher.
“We have an enormous task before us, but we also have the power to make a difference” Claytor says in an email. “We must follow the lead of the students and other young people here who are stepping forward to demand common sense gun reforms. We must take to the streets today and demand that gun violence END in our schools and communities.”
The rally begins at 2 p.m. with the march around 2:45 p.m. at Centennial Park, 3000 W. Edinger Ave., Santa Ana (starting at Softball Diamond No. 5. Enter the park from Edinger Avenue and drive counter-clockwise on West Centennial Road).
More info: www.marchforourlivesoc.com.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.