Patriot Student to Speak at Student-Led NRA Protest

R-L: Olivia Mumma, Megan Black and Gavin Brown, lead organizers of the Patriot High School walkout stand with other participants. (Photo from SOS_Nova Twitter account.)

Submitted by Student Protest Organizers 

(Fairfax, VA) – The groundswell movement of students demanding changes to our nation’s lax gun laws is sweeping across the country. Youth from Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut and Florida will hold a Student Protest at the NRA headquarters, 11250 Waples Mill Rd., Fairfax, VA, from    12-2 p.m. on Saturday, April 14 - the two-month anniversary of the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Among the student speakers is Olivia Mumma of Patriot High School, who helped organize the school's two student-led walkouts, and organized a bus trip to March for Our Lives for local teens. She is also one of the founders of Save Our Schools Nova, or @SOS_Nova on Twitter.

Other speakers include survivors from deadly school shootings in Parkland, Florida and Newtown, Connecticut.

Speakers:

• Aalayah Eastmond, a survivor of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who spoke at the March for Our Lives event in Washington D.C. on March 24;
• Jenny Wadhwa, a junior at Newtown High School in Connecticut and member of the Jr. Newtown Action Alliance;
• Brenna Levitan, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School and Michael Solomon, a sophomore at Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, co-presidents of Montgomery County Students for Gun Control who spoke at a rally on the National Mall they helped organize on March 14;
• Olivia Mumma, a senior at Patriot High School in Nokesville, Virginia, who helped organize a school walkout and arranged buses for youth from Prince William County to attend March for Our Lives in Washington D.C. on March 24;
• Fifth graders from George Mason Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia, who helped organize a walkout on March 14 to promote school safety and to honor lives lost to gun violence.

Inspired by the student movement to address gun violence, the youth intend to focus attention on the NRA’s influence over legislators and their attempts to thwart all sensible gun violence prevention legislation.

“We are calling out the gun lobby for their opposition to even sensible changes,” says Paige Szipszky, a sophomore at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, and one of the organizers of the protest.

“And we are calling on legislators to stop taking orders from the NRA and to start protecting kids, not guns,” said Tommy Murray, a student organizer from Newtown, Connecticut.