March for our Lives demonstration coming to Burlingame Saturday

Ling will be one of many San Mateo County youths participating in Saturday’s demonstration outside Burlingame City Hall at 501 Primrose Road. The event, starting at 10 a.m., is part of the national March for our Lives movement spearheaded by survivors of a 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people died.

The Sequoia Union and San Jose chapters of March for our Lives will be hosting their own joint demonstration at 9 a.m. Saturday outside the Redwood City Library at 1044 Middlefield Road, giving students, teachers and other advocates the opportunity to speak on gun reform. A third event will be held on the coastside at 10 a.m. Saturday, outside the Pacifica Community Center at 540 Crespi Drive.

Those behind the movement advocate for greater gun safety through policies like establishing stricter standards to qualify for a gun, creating a national gun licensing and registry system, a ban on assault weapons like the one used during a recent shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed, and stronger red flag laws.

Owen Day, a rising ninth grader at The Nueva School and a participant of Saturday’s March for our Lives event, said the Robb Elementary School mass shooting hit close to home. The high school student has a brother in the fourth grade making him the same age as the students gunned down on Wednesday, May 24.

“I am scared every day that my brother might not come home from school — all because many of our legislators are on the NRA’s payroll and value money over the lives of our children,” Day said in a statement.

Jessica Mullens Engelman, one of many adults assisting behind the scenes with organizing the Burlingame demonstration, said the local event is intended to help concerned students lend their voice to the national movement.

For Ling, she said the push to end gun violence is a top issue for her because she feels access to guns has taken priority over the lives of children. Similarly, Shikha Kini, a rising 11th grader at Crystal Springs Uplands School, said she’s participating in the event because she’s driven to advocate for “a world where a school is a place of exploration, not of hiding, and a world in which kids can just be kids.”

“I march for our lives because I no longer want to live in a world where I have to fear going to school, where my parents are afraid to send me to the movie theater, where I need identification to buy pepper spray but can walk into a store and be surrounded by available guns,” Kini said in a statement.

Vannessa Seacrest and Samira Rahmatullah are two locals behind the event who’ve specifically worked closely with a “growing army of student volunteers and speakers” who will be in attendance. Local organizations will have booths out for the event, including Students Demand Action, Moms Demand Action and the League of Women Voters.

And Assembly Speaker pro Tem Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, will be in attendance of the Burlingame demonstration, sharing his support for the students behind the event.

“I stand firmly in support of the families who are coming together in Burlingame to mourn the tragic and senseless loss of lives to gun violence and to demand action. Gun violence is a public health crisis in our country. It’s time to say enough is enough and implement common-sense gun control laws,” Mullin said in a statement.

Katherine Leahey Gerster is another adult behind the event who helped coordinate a similar demonstration in 2018. Back then, she said she felt the movement’s tidal wave was sure to cause change. Years later, she said she still feels motivated and hopeful.

She argued that state residents are not fully safe without stronger federal protections, backing Mullens Engelman’s sentiment around the need to add to the collective voice for gun control legislation. But Leahey Gerster also shared appreciation for California’s stricter gun laws and for promises from elected leadership to expedite state legislation aimed at reducing gun violence.

Ultimately, Leahey Gerster said San Mateo County communities are largely safe places. In her advocacy work, she said she aims for a balanced approach that shows her children that fighting for greater gun safety is important without causing them to fear for their safety.

“I feel hopeful and I think that going to a march is such an energetic moment of solidarity,” Leahey Gerster said. “I take the attitude that it could be us. That’s why we need to do this. But I want the kids to feel safe and just to know that we’re fighting for all children and not out of specific fear for our own kids.”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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