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A survivor of the Florida shooting just gave the most incredible speech at anti-gun rally

Twisted: Unserious food tastes seriously good.

By Nicola Agius

Feb 19, 20185 mins

A survivor of the Florida shooting just gave the most incredible speech at anti-gun rally

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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