classmates. sam was part of the rally back in 2018. sam, i wonder, what is like for you to be back here today. in 2018 you are on the stage. you are here today, four years later, what does that mean to you? is little bittersweet knowing that the reason we are here today is because there s more bodies that have been lowered into the ground. the rate of gun violence is climbing, raided the homicide, a shooting, mass shootings in, it is only been increasing. we are here to emphasize the importance of a common sense legislation. tell the people in congress and senate that we need these things passed in order to reduce the amount of bodies that we are losing every single year to everyday gun violence. sam, i wonder what it is like going through what you went through, being in those classrooms on february 14th 2018, but it s like when you wake up to what happened in uvalde? it is traumatizing. it is triggering, every single time. a conversation of gun violence is personal to
where the first march for our lives event was in 2018. it was organized by the survivors of the marjory stoneman douglas high school. as you mentioned, they re expecting and hoping for tens of thousands of people today. of course, it is raining a little bit. it had a little bit of an impact on the turnout today. it is starting to fill up today. it is we are beginning to hear from speaker s the next few hours. protesters are telling me that they are looking for the things that we ve been looking at talking for the past week. universal background checks, raising the minimum age from 18 to 21. you will see people out here all day with signs that say just that. your kid could be next is one of the scientists i saw this morning. he was wearing a shirt with red paint all over. it you are fired up. i want to introduce you to a survivor of marjory stoneman douglas high school. this is sam. you probably remember after watching at home. sam and i met in the days after the parkland shooting.