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Parkland Shooting Survivor Emma González: “We Fight Our Trauma by Fighting Against Gun Violence”

HeadlineFeb 15, 2019

On Thursday, students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, and schools across the United States observed a moment of silence to remember the 17 students, staff and teachers who were killed in Parkland on February 14, 2018, in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. One of the students who survived the shooting, Emma González, spoke at an event in New York.

Emma González: “A lot of people either don’t know about or forget about the trauma of gun violence, and that it doesn’t only resurface on the anniversary of the event. Every day, I feel the same. Every day, my friends feel the same. Every day, it feels like the shooting is happening again or happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow. … For me and most of my friends, we fight our trauma by fighting against gun violence and the system that perpetrates it.”

Since the the Parkland shooting, nearly 1,200 children have been killed by guns in the United States. Meanwhile, a new survey from NPR and PBS has found that over a quarter of parents with school-age children say their child knows someone who has been the victim of gun violence.

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