On Parkland, Valentine’s Day and Trump – The Miami Hurricane
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The sun rose over Parkland, Florida on Feb. 14, 2018, with kindred spirits and an amorous air. By 2 p.m., Valentine’s Day in Parkland became a day that no longer yearned for heart-shaped chocolates. It yearned for 17 families and a nationwide epiphany on gun control.
Seventeen lives were ended almost one year ago by a sole shooter, Nikolas Cruz, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSDHS) in Parkland, Florida.
It was a day that allowed domestic terrorism to inch even closer to our home in Miami.
This shooting, one that claimed 14 students and three faculty members, was not mentioned once in President Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address, despite his Mar-a-Lago resort club being 40 minutes away. In fact, gun safety was not mentioned at all.
After Parkland, there has been 18 mass shootings in the United States; three were located in Florida.
As President Trump argued that illegal immigrates contribute to the high crime rate in the United States, he not once mentioned the crimes[1] committed by white American men like Cruz, who have easy access to guns. Despite the survivor-driven movement that the Parkland students and families sparked, President Trump refused to address or even mention guns in his State of the Union address. His immediate reaction to the Parkland shooting was to raise the age limit on buying certain assault rifles from 18 to 21. However, by March[2], the president insisted on tackling the school shooting issues by arming school faculty instead. This plan is one that has been propagated by the National Rifle Association. In the 2016 election, the NRA spent $11.5 million to support Donald Trump. They spent another $20.7 million to oppose Hillary Clinton. According to Fortune[3], “That’s over $31 million spent on one presidential race.” It’s been a year filled with anguish and activism.
