Parkland Survivor Accuses March For Our Lives Of Racism

The gun control group March For Our Lives, originally founded by several survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, being accused of racism by one of the former students at the school who says that her voice has been suppressed by the organization. Aalayah Eastmond, who’s now 19-years old, launched a broadside against MFOL on Twitter accusing the group not only of being silent on racial issues, but advocating for gun control policies that will hurt young black men and women.

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Eastmond went on to slam March for Our Lives for elevating students like David Hogg, who wasn’t near the shooting but was on campus when it took place, over students like herself, who witnessed the shooting firsthand. According to Eastmond, the snub was intentional and based on the racist ideals of the Parkland community.

Eastmond even accused fellow MSD survivor Ryan Deitsch of unnamed racist acts which she says led to him being removed from the organization.

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Eastmond also accused March For Our Lives of cutting checks to white students to take part in a nationwide tour where they promoted federal gun control legislation, while she was unpaid for her activism.

As Eastmond tweeted her frustration with March For Our Lives, other former students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas chimed in with their own critiques of the gun control group, backing up Eastmond’s assertion that activists like David Hogg were promoted over Eastmond.

Eastmond’s mother even accused March For Our Lives of trying to prevent her daughter from speaking in front of a congressional panel discussing gun control.

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So far March For Our Lives has avoided responding to Eastmond directly on Twitter, but they’ve had a few tweets in recent days where they endorse the idea of defunding police, including this brief thread following the grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case.

While the organization is promoting dismantling the existing criminal justice system on Twitter, the group’s own “Peace Plan” is chock full of proposed laws that would be enforced by armed agents of the State and result in prison time for offenders.

  • A multi-step approval process, overseen by a law enforcement agency, that requires background checks, in-person interviews, personal references, rigorous gun safety training, and a waiting period of 10 days for each gun purchase. Licenses would be renewed every year upon successful completion of annually refreshed requirements in the above areas. In the process, a national registry of firearms sales would be created to make gun owners responsible for their weapons and hold them accountable when those weapons are used in a crime. Our licensing system would also include the ability to disarm individuals who become a danger to themselves or others.
  • Annual licensing fees for anyone who wants to obtain a national gun and ammunition license. Gun violence has indirect and direct costs of hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and any responsible gun owner would pay into the national licensing system for the ability to possess and use firearms. In addition, we would impose higher fees on the bulk purchase of firearms and ammunition, which have been predicates to the misuse of firearms.
  • A higher standard for gun ownership, which would start with raising the minimum age for gun possession to 21. In addition, we would expand prohibited categories for obtaining a gun license, with a focus on those with a propensity for violence. This would include: individuals with felony convictions, any level of domestic violence offenders (protective orders and misdemeanors), individuals with a documented history of violence, individuals convicted of hate crimes, individuals convicted of stalking, and individuals that make a credible and public threat against a specific person or institutions such as schools, churches, or workplaces.
  • A limit of one firearm purchase per month.
  • A prohibition on any and all online firearm and ammunition sales or transfers, including gun parts.
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The group’s “peace plan” also calls for a mandatory “buy back” of so-called assault weapons, as well as empowering local and state governments to impose additional gun control measures. Now, if you believe that the criminal justice system is systemically racist, how do you square that with policies that would disproportionally impact minorities and lower-income Americans by giving law enforcement broad discretion in determining who could exercise their right to keep and bear arms, and put people in prison for non-violent, possessory “crimes” created by these same gun laws?

For months I’ve been saying that the Left has a problem on its hands when it comes to embracing both gun control and the defund police movement, and the cracks in the coalition are growing ever larger. Democrats will try to ignore the problem and even paper over it at least until the elections are over, but a reckoning is coming, and I don’t think it can be avoided for much longer.

 

 

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