SMC Students Plan to Lie Down in Protest of Gun Violence
Inside Tilt Coffee Bar in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, June 1, Santa Monica College students Oona Wuolijoki and Amanda Southworth worked on their upcoming protest that will take place next Tuesday, June 12. Their "Die-In" protest will fall on the second anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.
Southworth and Wuolijoki are both members of the March For Our Lives Los Angeles organization and two of the four main organizers of the national Die-In protest in Los Angeles. “Gun violence is something that not only affects schools, but affects a lot of intersectional communities, especially in Los Angeles," Southworth said. "And I think that what we're doing right now is not enough of an effort to protect the future. And honestly, if we want to make any change, it's up to us.
Southworth also said that at noon, they will end the protest by having everyone drop to the floor for 700 seconds to represent the approximate number of people killed due to gun violence since the Pulse nightclub shooting. "The idea is to also act as a physical reminder of what happens when there's inaction in office," Southworth said. "And it's not only these lives lost, it's human lives being lost... cause when you think about [mass shooting deaths] on the news, I think you tend to think of it as in numbers instead of as in humans... you see the number instead of the people."
The idea of this national protest came from the March For Our Lives chapters Orlando in Parkland, Florida. The goal is to “both honor the victims of the Pulse Massacre but then also keep the conversation going and the energy going," Wuoliljoki said. "We are not stopping until the amount of gun violence in this country is not this... It’s an unacceptable reality that people die to gun violence at rates that are nothing compared to any other developed countries.”
The organizers from March For Our Lives have also teamed up with the Women’s March organization. Alyssa Milano, founder of the #MeToo movement, is one of the speakers scheduled for their rally.
They also partnered with survivors of the Parkland mass shooting, such as David Hogg. As stated in a press release: “We choose to take action when our politicians will not. Because if they don’t, children that are alive today will not be alive in a year. From now on, we must fight for those we have lost and those we will if no action is taken.”
The upcoming protest is planned to begin next Tuesday, June 12 at 10:30 a.m. in Los Angeles City Hall and end at 12:12 p.m. More information is available on their Facebook event page, “National Die-In Los Angeles.”