Stop gun violence march in Nassau organized by students

Trien Song remembered seeing photos of some of the students who died in the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where two teachers and 19 elementary schoolchildren were killed last year. 

"They made me think of the kids that I worked with ... sweet, innocent faces,” said Song, who tutored younger children in math and reading outside school. “It was gut-wrenching.”

She recalled thinking: “There’s got to be a change. It can’t stay this way.”

Song, 18, said that last summer she restarted the Long Island chapter of March For Our Lives, a national youth-led organization created after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed in 2018.

Last June, several hundred demonstrators rallied outside the Nassau County Executive and Legislative Building in a march organized under the same group to call for tougher gun safety measures. 

Song and two other high schoolers, Sally Jamieson and Dahlia Solomon, all executive directors of the Island chapter, organized this year's rally scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday in Mineola to call for legislative changes to end gun violence.

“I can’t even use words to describe my frustrations over the lack of gun restrictions and gun laws to prevent these weapons of war from getting into the wrong hands,” said Song, who graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School East on Thursday and is heading to Emory University in Atlanta in the fall.

The teens said the rally will include speeches from students, advocates and a gun violence survivor outside the Nassau County Executive and Legislative Building.

“It’s super disheartening as high school students to see all the gun violence in schools,” said Jamieson, 16, a rising senior at Syosset High School. “We want to do our part to help facilitate change in our community.”

Solomon, 17, also a rising senior at Syosset High School, said she wants people to know that this is an issue deeply concerning to young students like her.

“In the past year, we have had school shooting threats” in schools on the Island, she said. “We do see the effects in our day-to-day life. … We do have to cope with the threats and go through these drills.”

The young advocates said they hope the rally will raise awareness and garner a sense of community so that more youth and adults will get involved in local advocacy efforts.

“There has been a numbness when we hear another school shooting,” Solomon said. “We almost become used to it. I don’t think we should ever be used to it.”

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.