David Berliner wrote a series of tweets, calling for a national teachers’ strike, on February 14, after the news of the massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. That night, he combined the tweets into a short post, which I put online. That post received more than 100,000 views in a bit more than 24 hours. Clearly, many teachers, parents, and students were eager to find a way to express their sorrow and outrage.
This is the product of Dr. Berliner’s brilliant idea.
David Berliner sent the following message as a follow-up:
“I think my essay, sent to Diane’s many followers, sparked the fire we now hope to build under the NRA. We have had enough. It’s a representative democracy and our representatives need to do what we want, not what the NRA wants.
“I had proposed May Day as the day of action. For lots of other reasons many groups preferred April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine massacre, as a day of remembrance and action. I will happily join with teachers and administrators. I will happily walk with school bus drivers and school lunchroom, janitorial, and maintenance staff. I hope also that the millions of ex-educators, parents and grand-parents are with us too, demanding safety for our children and our teachers. We need gun control and more widespread and better mental health services now!
“April 20th will be a day to show what democracy looks like. A day our citizens order our representatives to make us a safer nation.”
DCB
David C. Berliner
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
Arizona State University
120 E. Rio Salado Pkwy, #205
Tempe, AZ 85281-9116
Phone: 480-759-5049
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks to all who are organizing this event, and others including March 24.
The NRA media machine today got a full page in the local newspaper, claiming that adults were exploiting naive, innocent children for their own unreasonable agenda. Not a word about the destructive force of the military weapons easily available. The slamming of the student activists and their supporters was really over the top. The NRA supporters will be pulling out all of the stops and using bots and trolls to help do that. I am sickened by the attacks on critics and will join in local events if at all possible.
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NRA is EVIL.
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This is an auspicious time to activate young people in restricting the death industry. The NRA & the gun manufacturers they represent are not backing down. They are targeting young people anticipating they will be more likely than this generation to accept automatic weapons as a natural part of their lives.
The chief executive of the gun manufacturer Sturm Ruger, Christopher Killoy, told investors in May that, although sales were down, the industry is better positioned in relation to previous downturns because of the influx of “new shooters, fresher faces, younger faces, more diverse faces.”
At the Bank of America Leveraged Finance Conference in November, the CFO of one of the largest companies involved in gun accessories and ammunition was explicit about the video-game appeal to young gun enthusiasts. “It has become a recreational shooting market, partly driven by the Xbox generation coming of age,” said Stephen Nolan, of Vista Outdoor. “And two trends which bode very well to the market long term: significant influx of younger shooters and significant influx of female shooters into the market.
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It seems that there is another ‘day of action’ being planned by and for students on March 24. As usual, the protest (already proven to be a non-deterrent in the run up to the Iraq war) will be divided, and thus even less effective.
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You mean that you are only allowed to attend one of the events and not both? Didn’t think so, fixed that for ya.
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For April 20 I would encourage those who want to support this effort to identify specific laws they want to see passed in their state. I live on the NH/VT border and the laws being promoted in VT where the GOP governor open to gun control are far different than the laws being promoted in NH where the GOP governor and legislature are all in on whatever the NRA and ALEC are recommending.
In the long run those who support some kind of reasonable restrictions on guns— i.e. the 75% of individuals who do not possess firearms— need to coalesce in the same way the NRA has coalesced the voters who unquestioningly support every piece of legislation that “supports the 2nd amendment”… An article in yesterday’s NYTimes made the point that the NRA doesn’t make direct contributions to candidates so much as they spend on targeted advertising to their base… That might be a model to emulate in November…
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How does this April 20 day of action relate to the planned nationwide gun control march on March 24?
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