Joining a movement that arose from the slaughter of 17 students and adults at a Florida high school last month, hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Red Bank Saturday as part of a nationwide ‘March for Our Lives‘ effort to demand bans on assault weapons and other legislation to reduce gun violence in schools.
Beginning at the borough train station, participants, many in their teens, marched along Monmouth Streets carrying signs that read “books not bullets,” “I can’t wait to vote” and “Enough.”
The demonstrators gathered for a rally at Riverside Gardens Park, where a student in a Red Bank Catholic sweatshirt told the crowd that she and her classmates had been instructed how to secure classroom doors with belts and computer cords and build a barricade of chairs and desks in the event of an armed attack on the school.
“Children should not have to fear going to school,” she told listeners gathered on the snow-covered grass. “Children should not have to think that active shooter drills are the new normal.”
Alluding to the National Rifle Association, Red Bank Regional senior Jay Izzo told the crowd: “Be ready, because we’re coming, and we’re taking all of your blood money and all your assault weapons of war from your greedy, bloodstained hands.”
“We’re going to make a change, because there is no other option,” another teen said of her generation. “The kids have had enough.”
(Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge.)
