Parkland High School Students Come To Wisconsin On Road To Change Tour

High school students from Parkland, Florida are in Wisconsin to advocate for stricter gun control laws and to register young people to vote.

The students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are making three stops in Wisconsin as part of a nationwide March for Our Lives: Road to Change tour. They plan to hold events Friday in Janesville and Madison and Saturday in Milwaukee.

Linnea Stanton is a Marquette University sophomore and a March for Our Lives Milwaukee organizer. She said it’s significant that Parkland students are using their platform in Janesville, the home of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Activists like Stanton have been critical of Ryan for not bringing legislation allowing stricter background checks for gun purchases to a vote.

“(Parkland students are) addressing the problem head-on saying like, ‘Paul Ryan, you need to allow the vote that we are trying to push for,’” Stanton said.

Stanton said it’s also important Parkland students are visiting Madison because that’s the state capitol.

As for Milwaukee, Stanton said its own problems with gun violence make it a poignant place for the students to visit on their tour.

“I also think that it’s really important that the Parkland students are coming to Milwaukee because Milwaukee is such an area that deals with anti-gun violence work,” Stanton said. “And also because there is so much gun violence within the community itself.”

Organizers of the nationwide tour say they are attempting to harness the energy and passion from more than 800 anti-gun violence student-led protests held March 24 in Wisconsin and across the country.

Still, in Wisconsin and the rest of the country, there has been some pushback from students in favor of Second Amendment rights.

In May, almost two dozen students in Sun Prairie, Eau Claire and Milwaukee walked out of class as part of a national walkout supporting the right to bear arms.

But former Parkland student Matt Deitsch, now chief strategist for March for Our Lives, said he thinks there’s a misunderstanding of what Parkland students aim to do.

“We stand for the Second Amendment too and we understand that these regulations that we’re trying to put into place do not touch on the Second Amendment,” Dietsch told WPR.

Parkland activist David Hogg said both sides have more in common than differences.

“It’s incredibly important that we come to places like the Midwest and different parts of America that have a different view on what we may be doing,” Hogg told WPR.

Student activists continue to work on being more inclusive in their rallying efforts, said Hogg. They want to bring more attention to gun violence as it relates to domestic violence issues and suicide among groups like farmers.

The tour began last week in Chicago and is focusing on the Midwest during the month of June. Students have made stops in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

They will be going to Minnesota, Standing Rock Reservation and North Dakota next.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2 p.m., Friday, June 22, with original reporting by WPR staff.