Students March 50 Miles To Paul Ryan’s Hometown To Demand Gun Control
Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.com
The March for Our Lives continues, and students aren’t letting up on Republicans.
In Wisconsin, dozens of high school students are spending their spring break marching 50 milesacross the southern portion of the state to demand House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) take action on guns.
The marchers set out from Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday and plan to arrive in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville on Wednesday.
They’re urging Ryan to help ban all military-style weapons and all accessories that turn semiautomatic weapons into automatic weapons, such as bump stocks. They are also calling for a four-day waiting period on all gun purchases, required background checks on all gun sales, and to increase the legal purchasing age of all guns to 21.
“We want to start a conversation,” said Brendan Fardella, a 17-year-old senior, told the Washington Post. “Clearly this is a human rights issue in our country. If that isn’t such an issue in this country, then I don’t know what is.”
The marchers are honoring a different victim of gun violence during each of the 50 miles along the way to Janesville.
The students, who hail from all over the state, cite the 54-mile civil rights march from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 as their inspiration. Their action has been dubbed March for our Lives: 50 Miles More.
They spent their first night sleeping on a high school gymnasium floor.
What to do when marching 50 miles to @SpeakerRyan‘s hometown? Create highly applicable and catchy chants. Play on full volume! #50More pic.twitter.com/z2RLPlVSNg
— March For Our Lives: 50 Miles More (@50milesmore) March 26, 2018
Soon after the school massacre in Parkland, Florida, Ryan let it be known there would be no serious effort in the GOP-controlled House to confront the American epidemic of gun violence.
He told reporters at a February briefing that “we shouldn’t be banning guns for law-abiding citizens” but “focusing on making sure that citizens who shouldn’t get guns in the first place, don’t get those guns.” He also agreed with Trump that arming tens of thousands of schoolteachers across the country was a “good idea.”
Additionally, echoing NRA talking points, Ryan basically blamed local law enforcement for the Parkland mass murder.
More than 400 marched and rallied outside of Ryan’s Janesville office on Saturday, as part of the nationwide protests.
If Democrats take back the House in November, Ryan will lose his speakership. Because of that, there’s been some speculation that he might not run for re-election. Ryan’s district should be a shoe-in for Republicans, but CNN recently downgraded his race from Solid Republican to Likely Republican.
Paul Ryan may be hearing foot steps.
