After the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people with an AR-15, there has been a renewed call for common sense gun control laws. (Like, say, not allowing mentally ill teenagers to legally purchase AR-15's, for starters.)

The gun control debate in America is extremely contentious (as I'm sure you can tell by the comments underneath this article!) There have been many, many mass shootings, and after each one, lawmakers have failed to address the issue of gun control (or say "it's not the time to discuss it"). But in this instance, the pressure is on, thanks to the survivors of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The students have refused to remain silent, and emerged as passionate advocates for change.

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Senior student Emma Gonzalez delivered a powerful speech that went viral, criticizing the NRA and the spineless politicians who accept millions of dollars from their lobbyists every year. "Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS," said Emma. "They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS."

On March 24, the students will be going to Washington, D.C. to hold the March For Our Lives. It's a demonstration to raise awareness of the epidemic of gun violence, and demand Congress to pass a "comprehensive and effective bill" to address the problem. The mission statement on their website reads: "Not one more. We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of a firing assault rifle to save the lives of students...Our schools are unsafe. Our children and teachers are dying. We must make it our top priority to save these lives."

And there's going to be some famous faces marching with the survivors. George and Amal Clooney have announced that they will be attending the March for Our Lives demonstration, as well as donating $500,000 to help pay for the event. Like many people, the humanitarians were blown away by the students' inspiring speeches and interviews after the tragedy.

"[We] are so inspired by the courage and eloquence of these young men and women from Stoneman Douglas High School," said the Clooneys in a statement. "Our family will be there on March 24 to stand side by side with this incredible generation of young people from all over the country, and in the name of our children Ella and Alexander, we’re donating 500,000 dollars to help pay for this groundbreaking event. Our children’s lives depend on it."

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In fact, the Clooneys are just the beginning. Since their announcement, Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, and Oprah Winfrey have all said they will match the $500,000 pledge. "These inspiring young people remind me of the Freedom Riders of the 60s," tweeted Oprah, "who also said we’ve had ENOUGH and our voices will be heard."

We'll see if Congress listens.

In related news, meet the people who believe that US mass shootings are staged...

Amidst an ongoing gun violence crisis in the USA, court documents have emerged which detail an incident involving a 12-year-old boy who brought a gun to school with the intention of murdering his teacher. The child, who has not been named, allegedly entered a classroom on August 31st of this year, ordered everybody to get on the floor, then attempted to shoot his teacher in the face.

Fortunately, the safety was on.

The incident happened at North Scott Junior High in Eldridge, Iowa, which is ranked 18th out of the 50 states in terms of gun safety laws. It is not yet known how the child came to acquire the 22-caliber handgun he used in the attempted murder, but the state's relatively lax regulations on how guns can be acquired or stored may have something to do with it.

In this case, the teacher managed to wrestle the weapon off the boy - but other similar incidents have not ended without casualties.

In February of this year, a teenager brought a gun to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and massacred 17 people. His actions caused an unprecedented reaction from victims of the shooting, families of the deceased, and people around the world who saw the tragedy that had occurred and felt the need to do something in order to prevent further fatalities.

Emma Gonzalez, one of the students caught up in the Parkland shooting, later went on to deliver a powerful speech pleading for gun reform laws.

"The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call BS," she said.

"They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS."

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Since the Parkland shooting, however, not much has been done to improve gun laws, and so violent incidents involving firearms are still a daily occurrence in the USA.

In the last few days alone, four people were injured when a shooting took place at a nightclub in Tennessee, a man and a woman died of gunshot wounds in Wisconsin, and two deputies were killed in a house in North Carolina. All of these incidents may have been prevented if the shooters did not have such easy access to weapons.

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The boy accused of bringing a gun to his classroom last month had since been charged with attempted murder, having a weapon on school grounds, and assault while displaying a dangerous weapon. He has not yet been sentenced for his crimes, but remains in the Scott County Juvenile Detention Center.

Hopefully, by the time he gets out, gun laws will have been reformed.

The attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida last month has reignited the debate surrounding gun control in America, or the lack thereof. The rampage, which is the deadliest school shooting since 2012, saw 17 people lose their lives after suspected gunman, Nikolas Cruz, opened fire with a semiautomatic AR-15 and began shooting students he saw in the hallways and on school grounds.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the Trump administration proposed providing certain school personnel with "rigorous" firearms training. President Trump also backed a bill to make criminal background checks on gun buyers more thorough, although, he countered this by back-pedalling on increasing the minimum age to buy some firearms - a policy which he had previously endorsed.

While not yet implemented a potential problem with that first initiative seems to have been raised: a teacher at a Northern California school accidentally discharged a firearm while teaching a public safety class.

A teacher and reserve police officer has been place on leave after he mistakenly fired a gun in a classroom, injuring one student.

Dennis Alexander was teaching students about gun safety for his Administration of Justice class at Seaside High School in Northern California when his weapon went off at around 1:20pm on Tuesday. The gun was pointed towards the ceiling when it was fired, and this caused pieces of rubble to fall to the ground.
Fermin Gonzales stated that his 17-year-old son was injured during the incident and had to be taken to hospital to have the bullet fragments in his neck removed. Speaking to local media outlet, KSBW, the parent said that Alexander has told the class that he wanted to ensure that the gun wasn't loaded when it accidentally discharged.

"It could have been very bad," Gonzales asserted.

According to Gonzales, school officials did not pause to check if students were injured following the mistaken firing. He alleged that his son came home with blood on his shirt and fragments of the bullet in his neck. "He's shaken up, but he's going to be OK," he added.

Speaking to The Montreal County Weekly, Seaside Police Chief Abdul Pridgen countered Mr. Gonzales' statement, saying that the student was struck in the neck by "debris or fragmentation", not a bullet.

Despite the President's proposed initiative, teachers are not legally permitted to have firearms in Californian classrooms. Sand City Police Chief Brian Ferrante told KSBW that he's therefore concerned about why the reserve police officer had a loaded gun in the school. "We will be looking into that,' he said. "My first concern was that no one was hurt."

Dennis Alexander has since been placed on administration leave from the school and the Sand City Police Department.

Seaside High School has issued a statement on the incident, stating that counselling services will be provided for students experiencing distress;

"We want to make you aware of an accident that occurred in the Administration of Justice class today at Seaside High School. As some of you may know, the teacher is a reserve police officer. Today, during class, the teacher accidentally discharged his firearm during a lesson while it was pointed at the ceiling. Debris from the ceiling then fell

"Upon learning of the incident, our Human Resources department, school site administration and the Seaside Police Department immediately began investigating the incident, including interviewing students in the class. We will also have counselling services available for students. ... The safety of your student is always our top priority, and we will continue to remain vigilant in our efforts to keep them safe while they are under our care."

In related news, here's what happened when they "gave Israeli teachers guns".

Last week, a 19-year-old man murdered 17 people and wounded a further 14 at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The school shooting was the worst in the US since Sandy Hook, and has reignited gun control debates across the country. Amongst those discussing the second amendment, students who were actually present at the shooting have been some of the most vocal. Many of them have taken to Twitter to directly confront President Trump about the issue, with one pupil - Sarah - saying: "Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead. Do something instead of sending prayers. Prayers won’t fix this. But Gun control will prevent it from happening again." Others, however, had the opportunity to stand up in front of a crowd and deliver their thoughts on the matter. Emma Gonzales, a senior at the Parkland school, stepped up during a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale and addressed thousands of people when she said: "Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving. "But instead, we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it's time for victims to be the change that we need to see." She continued: "If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and ... how nothing is going to be done about it, I'm going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association. "It doesn't matter because I already know. Thirty million dollars." The 18-year-old was, of course, referring to donations that Trump received from the NRA during his presidential campaign. "To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA - shame on you!" she said. Despite ongoing pleas from victims of shootings and gun control advocates, many in the USA are still insistent that this is a "mental health" or "behavior" problem rather than a gun issue. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/964110212885106689]] However, many people seem to be neglecting the fact that the USA is the single worst developed nation on Earth for mass shootings. In comparison to the UK, for example, 64 per cent of all of America's homicides came as a result of gun violence in 2016, whereas its neighbors across the pond had a rate of just 4.5 per cent. Both nations have proportionate numbers of people with "mental health" problems - but only one of them has strict gun control laws. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/jonsnowC4/status/965214633224175616]] The ease with which people are able to buy guns in the USA is an undeniable problem, but - for some reason - legislators still care more about the second amendment than they do the lives of innocent people. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/BrendonWoodsPD/status/965466727076134913]] "This isn’t just a mental health issue. He wouldn’t have hurt that many students with a knife," Gonzales said to the crowd. "We are going to be the last mass shooting," she said. "We are going to change the law. That's going to be Marjory Stoneman Douglas in that textbook, and it's all going to be due to the tireless efforts of the school board, the faculty members, the family members and most importantly the students." Gonzales certainly made an impact on the people at the rally - hopefully, her words will influence those in government, too.