As survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting capture the nation’s attention with their persistent andpowerful calls for sensible gun laws, former first lady Michelle Obama has expressed “total awe” and support for the young activists.
In a tweet Wednesday night about the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 people last week, Obama wrote that she and her husband, former President Barack Obama, would be “behind you every step of the way.”
Her tweet comes about a week after the former president expressed grief over the shooting massacre and called for “long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want.”
The young survivors of the Parkland shooting have led the calls for tighter gun control regulations since the attack on their school. Students have appeared on national television to urge lawmakers to act; they’ve organized and inspired rallies in Florida, Washington, D.C., and across the nation; they’ve taken on trolls on social media and have stood firm amid a torrent of conspiracy theories aimed at undermining their activism.
As students gathered at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced that America’s high school students were “leading a revolution.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misidentified Rep. Jamie Raskin as Ben Raskin.