Tag: gun violence

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Lin-Manuel Miranda & Ben Platt Team Up For Hamilton-Dear Evan Hansen Mashup: “Found / Tonight”

Two Tony Award winners singing a mashup of two songs from back-to-back Tony Award winning scores and a portion of the proceeds go to help the March for Our Lives initiative.

Nope – can’t find a thing wrong with that.

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt finally team up for a mash-up of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen.

The new single “Found/Tonight,” arranged by Alex Lacamoire, brings together Hamilton’s “The Story of Tonight” with Dear Evan Hansen‘s “You Will Be Found,” adding up to a truly anthemic theme song for the upcoming nationwide protest against gun violence, March for Our Lives.

USA Today sets up the two songs that become musical magic:

“The Story of Tonight,” from Hamilton, is sung by a young Alexander Hamilton, Marquis de Lafayette, John Laurens and Hercules Mulligan, who share a round of drinks and camaraderie before joining the American Revolution.

“You Will Be Found,” from the 2017 Tony winner for best musical Dear Evan Hansen, is a speech about loneliness and friendship intended to keep alive the memory of a high school pal who committed suicide.

And here’s how it comes together:

 Even when the dark comes crashing through, when you need a friend to carry you,
When you’re broken on the ground, you will be found
So let the sun come streaming in cause you’ll reach up and you’ll rise again,
If you only look around, you will be found

 And when our children tell their story, they’ll tell the story of tonight
No matter what they tell you tomorrow there’ll be more of us
Telling the story of tonight 

Bonus points for Platt getting to sing the word “tonight” as he’s publicly campaigning to play “Tony” in the upcoming movie remake of West Side Story.

Watch below. Click here to listen on Spotify or download from iTunes.

One of the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where last month’s devastating gun massacre left 17 dead, clearly got the feels intended as he promoted the song on Twitter:

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#MarchForOurLives – “What If Our Politicians Weren’t The Bitch Of The NRA?”

In an ad that includes footage of Donald Trump needling Republicans for being “afraid of the NRA,” Parkland high school student David Hogg wonders aloud “What if our politicians weren’t the bitch of the NRA?”

The spot is promoting the upcoming March For Our Lives on March 24.

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#NationalWalkoutDay Students Send A Message To Lawmakers “If Any Elected Official Gets In Our Way, We Will Vote Them Out”

High school students across the entire country are sending a clear and powerful message to the nation’s lawmakers and the National Rifle Association that we need more than “thoughts and prayers” to solve our gun violence problem in the U.S.

These kids are woke.

From The New York Times:

Thousands of students, emboldened by a growing protest movement over gun violence, stood up in their classrooms on Wednesday and walked out of their schools in a nationwide demonstration, one month after a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Florida.

The 17-minute protests unfolding at hundreds of schools are intended to pressure Congress to approve gun control legislation after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and come 10 days before major protests in Washington and elsewhere.

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Orlando: Pulse Nightclub Survivors Greet Parkland Shooting Survivors

After spending several days in Tallahassee, Florida, lobbying state lawmakers to take steps that could stop violent gun massacres in the future, students who survived the gun massacre at a Parkland high school two weeks ago made a stop in Orlando to meet with survivors of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016.

Standing together, the survivors read the names of the 49 Pulse shooting victims and place a rose in a wire fence in tribute. They then added the names of the 17 killed in the Parkland shooting.

Neema Bahrami, who was an event manager at Pulse at the time of the attack, told the press, “We’re all family.”

Watch the local news report below.

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Dicks Sporting Goods Announces No More Gun Sales After Florida School Massacre

Dick’s Sporting Goods is not only ending the sale of all assault-style firearms in its stores, they will no longer sell guns to anyone under 21 years old.

Via USA Today:

Assault-style weapon sales ended at Dick’s-branded stores after the Newtown, Conn. school shooting in 2012. But the company was still selling them at its 35 Field & Stream locations, which specialize in hunting and outdoors products.

More: Here’s what Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack wrote about his company’s actions

“As we looked at what happened down in Parkland, we were so disturbed and saddened by what happened, we felt we really needed to do something,” Stack told GMA’s George Stephanopoulos.

Stack acknowledged that the Parkland school shooter had purchased a shotgun at one of the company’s stores in November. Though the killer did not use the gun in the shooting, the realization served as a catalyst for action.

“We did everything by the book, we did everything that the law required and still he was able to buy a gun,” Stack said. “When we looked at that, we said, ‘The systems that are in place across the board just aren’t effective enough to keep us from selling someone a gun like that.’”

To be honest, this comes as no surprise. I’ve loved Dicks my whole life 😉

And yes, you can bet I’m heading to the nearest store and buying something today.

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Trump Says He’d Have Run Into School Shooting “Even If I Didn’t Have A Weapon”

Speaking to the nation’s governors today about the deputy sheriff who failed to intervene during the gun massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School, Donald Trump said, “I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t have a weapon.”

This would be the same Donald Trump who dodged the Vietnam draft five times claiming he had “bone spurs” in one of his feet (he can’t seem to remember which foot).

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Florida: Officer At Parkland Shooting Stood Outside Instead Of Confronting Shooter

Nikolas Cruz

The NRA and Donald Trump have been touting that a trained professional with a gun could have stopped Nikolas Cruz from killing 17 people at the tragic gun massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school last week.

Except – there was a trained professional with a gun onsite at the shooting.

The good guy with a gun never went in.

From The Wall Street Journal:

The sheriff’s deputy who was assigned to the Florida school where a gunman killed 17 people last week has left the force after evidence showed he stood outside the building where the shooting occurred rather than going in, Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday.

“He never went in,” Sheriff Israel said, describing video footage of the scene he had watched.

Asked what school resource officer Scott Peterson should have done, the sheriff said he should have gone into the building, “addressed the killer, killed the killer.”

Mr. Peterson resigned after Sheriff Israel suspended him without pay pending an internal investigation, the sheriff said, speaking at a news conference.

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Highlights: Students, Parents & Teachers Face Off With Marco Rubio And NRA At Gun Violence Town Hall

Fred Guttenberg faces off with Sen. Marco Rubio

Last night’s Town Hall hosted by CNN was a rough ride for Sen. Marco Rubio and NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch as they took questions from parents and students regarding the tragic gun massacre that took place last week in Parkland, Florida.

You can listen to and read a full transcript of the Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper here.

Just a few highlights:

• Fred Guttenberg, father of Jaime Guttenberg who was killed in the shooting, told Rubio “your comments this week and those of our president have been pathetically weak.”

“Look at me and tell me. Guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids in this school this week,” Guttenberg said. “And look at me and tell me you accept it and you will work with us to do something about guns.”

Rubio later tweeted, “Banning all semi-auto weapons may have been popular with the audience at #CNNTownHall, but it is a position well outside the mainstream.”

• Student Cameron Kasky asked Rubio to say he wouldn’t take more money from the NRA. Rubio has received over $3.3 million from the NRA over the course of his political career.

“Can you tell me you won’t take a single donation from the NRA?” Kasky said. “In the name of the 17 people who died, you can’t ask the NRA to keep their money?” Rubio did not answer, saying only “people buy into my agenda.”

• Student Ryan Deitsch asked Rubio why it’s fallen to students and young people to take up the cause of gun violence after our lawmakers have dodged the issue for so long.

“We would like to know why do we have to be the ones to do this?” Deitsch asked. “Why do we have to speak out to the [state] Capitol? Why do we have to march on Washington, just to save innocent lives?”

• And the insanely calm and confident Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma González asked NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch if the NRA supports making it harder to obtain semiautomatic and fully automatic weapons.

“Dana Loesch, I want you to know that we will support your two children in a way that you will not,” said Gonzalez. “The shooter at our school obtained weapons that he used on us legally. Do you think that it should be harder to obtain these semiautomatic and the modifications for these weapons that make them fully automatic like bump stocks?”

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Parkland Shooting Survivor: Society Will Shrug This Off But “March For Hours” Over A Rainbow Wedding Cake

Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper today, Parkland student Cameron Kasky called out Americans who offer little more than “thoughts and prayers” when shooting tragedies happen, but will “march for hours if they have to bake a rainbow wedding cake.”

“This is the time to talk about guns. There’s much more that can be done, much more that needs to be done and much more that people like Sen Marco Rubio and Governor Rick Scott are not doing. It’s scary to think these are the people who are making our laws when our community just took 17 bullets to the heart.

“It feels like the only people who don’t care are the people making the laws. There is a segment of this society that will shrug this off and send their thoughts and prayers but march for hours if they have to bake a rainbow wedding cake.”

Kasky also called the response by Republican lawmakers a “facade” acted out via talking points from the National Rifle Association.

Watch Kasky below.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

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Dale Hansen: “I Thought Guns Don’t Kill People – People Do. Is This The People We Are?”

As we’ve come to expect, Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen often brings clarity and common sense to the forefront regarding painful challenges in the U.S.

Today’s commentary addresses the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead.

“And here I thought guns don’t kill…people do. Is this the people we are?”

Just watch my man Dale.