/

Hundreds gather for March For Our Lives

2 mins read
Mt. Blue senior River Lisius played a key role in organizing the event. Here she prepares for the lineup of speakers to begin, backed by hundreds of supporters from the community.

FARMINGTON – After the deaths of seventeen Stoneman Douglas High School students and staff members last month, young people across the globe gathered yesterday in an effort to end gun violence in their classrooms. In Washington D.C., organizers estimated 800,000 people participated in the march, with more than 800 events coinciding worldwide.

Attorney General Janet Mills spoke to the audience prior to the march.

“It’s time to follow the drum beat our fellow students have started,” a Mt. Blue High School student said at a sister march in downtown Farmington.

The youth-led event brought hundreds to Main Street to join in the movement. Students from elementary grades to college level were joined by teachers, principals, family members and community members for the march, followed by a line up of speakers in Meetinghouse Park. Mt. Blue High School students shared poems, songs and thoughts on the issue, calling for a change in policies.

“Students should not fear school. They shouldn’t have to memorize lock down protocol. Enough is enough. We need to be heard,” student speaker Kayla Kayla LeGrand said. “Congress, the ball is in your court. And we will be voting in the midterm election.”

Speakers included Regional School Unit 9 Superintendent Dr. Thomas Ward, Maine Education Association President Lois Kilby-Chesley and Attorney General Janet Mills. Volunteers helped to register new, young voters- encouraging event goers to continue the momentum after the march.

Students from Mt. Blue High School march in downtown Farmington on Saturday.
Meetinghouse Park overflowed with teachers, students, family members and community people Saturday in solidarity with the March for Our Lives rallies worldwide.
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

105 Comments

  1. Scott, you sir are a hypocrite! You chastise people for speaking against the school budget because they don’t understand the process or don’t attend budget meetings but you say I’m using slimely (is that even a word) tactics by suggesting protestors KNOW WHAT THEY ARE PROTESTING.

    I welcome differences. Differences lead to growth. I’ve started several debates with one opinion and ended with another because my counterpart was able to convince me with facts that I was wrong.

    Knowledge is power. Opinion without knowledge is nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion. No where did I say they need to be experts, I said they need to UNDERSTAND the issue they are taking a stand for or against for their argument to have any merit in my eyes.

    You don’t have to be an addict to understand drug laws but you do need to read the actual drug laws to say you understand them. You don’t have to be physician to take a stand on health care but you can’t demand a remedy without having some semblance of knowledge of health conditions. You don’t need to be a lawyer to be part of legal reform but you do need to know what laws do and do not exist.

    I’ve heard and read comments (not on the thread but elsewhere) about domestic abusers legally obtaining guns. Those comments are 100% false as there are state and federal statutes that prohibit gun possession by domestic abusers. That’s what I’m talking about. People saying _____ is wrong and something needs to be done about it when it has in fact already been labeled as wrong.

    And to say stricter gun laws are preventing gun violence in other industrialized countries is also unsubstantiated. There are several factors involved that you aren’t taking into account. The US has the most lax regulations on food (we are what we eat). ADHD prescription medication usage is 10 times higher in the US than in the UK. We have the highest healthcare costs but rank 11th (of 11 countries) in healthcare. We spend the more per student in education but rank 17th (of 40) in educational performance. We rank 34th (of 35) in child poverty. But hey, we lead the world in drug overdose deaths at more than 6 times the world average so at least we get one blue ribbon to go with our participation trophies.

    See what I did there Scott? It’s called research. I’m not an expert but yet I was able to find this information and make an informed argument. More power to the kids taking a stand but take the time to do some research before you use your feelings to shame me for mine.

  2. Scott, I don’t believe comparing countries to other countries is workable. Just compare US to the US and compare your others to themselves. (IE: no gun homicide or suicide in Japan, but suicide numbers are off the charts)

    Lets just concentrate on the Britain…these stats are from the parliament reports available at .gov.uk A quick google or duck duck go search will show them I am sure.

    They banned handguns in 1997 while the homicide rate was about 11.5 per a million people, It shot up to 18 per a million homicides by 2003 and has since came back down approximately to historic #s which is 11 homicides per a million. Again I say- less people killed with guns? Maybe. Were and are there less people killed? NO. (This does not take into account other violent crime such as Rape, armed robbery, car jacking etc..)

    I don’t buy the “take rights away” argument

    You don’t have to, But I was born with them and along with 99% of other people I have not misused those rights. Its a very slippery slope and at the end The only way everyone is safe is to lock everyone up away from each other, BUT who holds the keys?

    I don’t like how it becomes so easy for people to turn political disagreement into personal insult.
    It’s good to have disagreement, it’s good to have young people care about the community and engage in active, effective and respectful political action.

    I get it, I don’t either…I think most people here have been respectful of each other and it warms my heart to know how many of us “Free Folk” are around.

    Like I said I don’t see any real insulting going on HERE at the TDB but I have seen it elsewhere and don’t agree with it, But I also don’t agree with the thoughtless comments to gun owners and supporters about us killing kids or not caring enough, or that we have the blood of children on our hands. I can agree to disagree on gun issues and can say both sides of politics and the media, the NGOs and the government are wrong to take it down to such a level.

    Happy Easter everyone and hope its a great weekend!

  3. Richard asked this question;
    One question I offer up: Is it ok that two people could potentially commit the exact same crime under the same circumstances and one (the rich one) gets off with no penalty and the poor person is prosecuted and goes to jail? What happened to Equal Protection under the law?

    Great question Richard.
    And so I wonder why one of the pillars of more gun control, Hillary Rodham Clinton got away with her crimes of mishandling classified documents while a service member was court martialed for doing only a tiny fraction of what she did?
    Is that what you meant?

    The hypocrisy is astounding and smells very very badly.

  4. Professor Erb,

    Surely you must know of the various meanings of the term “sovereign.”. I was not using the term “sovereign” in some new unusual way. Check the versions of definitions for the term you can find here on the net. You’ll find some version of the definition of the term that indicates that the people can be the sovereign. You’ve read John Locke, surely. You’ve read Plato’s REPUBLIC where he distinguishes types of government forms based on whose power is held in a state. In a Monarchy there is one person, the sovereign. Remember The Sun King Louis the 14th . In an Oligarchy the sovereign, the power, belongs to the few. Remember Socrates’s difficulties with the Athenian Oligarchy? In a Democracy the sovereign is the many, the people.

    No Monarchy, or Oligarchy would have a Second Amendment.

  5. Sovereignty was originally a theological term, referring to God. In 1625, during the wars of reformation, Hugo Grotius, a Dutch scholar (and father of international law) applied it territories – saying the Monarch could be the ‘sovereign’ of that territory. That was the basis of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ending the 30 years war and creating a new political entity, the sovereign state. With Lockean Liberalism the notion of “popular sovereignty” emerged. That’s the idea that sovereignty comes from the people, not God. The US and France first justified rule with that notion (the US with democracy, Napoleon claiming the ‘general will’ expressed in a referendum gave him sovereign authority.) As a concept, sovereignty refers to the state – in a federal system powers of sovereignty are divided between a central government and a state/provincial government, based on a constitution. While the authority to grant sovereignty rests with “the people,” the term sovereignty is not usually used to describe individuals. As a concept of international law, it does not include individuals (as only sovereign states have status in most public international law).

    Most constitutional Republicans (aka democracies) lack a second amendment, and all others besides us have stricter gun control. They are nonetheless free, and able to hold their government accountable. I don’t think the 2nd is necessary to protect our freedoms; much like the third amendment, it reflects a different era. That said, I disagree with former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens that it should be abolished.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.