“I had two sons in high school at the time [of the Parkland shootings] and I picked one of them up after school that day and he said to me, ‘Did you hear what happened today in Florida?’” Meg Lord, San Jose Moms Demand Action (MDA) Welcome Lead, said.  “And I said, ‘Yeah, I did.’ And he said, ‘So I guess this is just normal now.’ And my heart dropped. I realized that my children were growing up in a world where they were starting to think that mass shootings of children and others were normal. [But] it’s simply not normal, it should never be considered normal. We should not be living this way [and] we should not be dying this way. So I decided I had to get off the sidelines.”

Moms Demand Action (MDA) is a branch of Everytown for Gun Safety and is a nationwide volunteer group that is currently about 10 million strong. Mom Shannon Watts formed the program following the Sandy Hooks mass shooting, and its main focus is gun violence prevention, which ranges from supporting Gun Sense politicians — politicians who commit themselves to the fight for stronger gun control laws —   to pushing for bills and legislation that will positively propel their cause. Similarly, the lead of the San Jose based branch, Rachel Michelson, created the program five years ago after realizing the Bay Area lacked a local program for people to join. 

“I [met] a group of other women who also were inspired [by MDA] and we [made] a group down this way, so it just snowballed from there,” Michelson said. 

Lord decided to take action and joined the MDA program based in San Jose, after finding out about it via Facebook. 

“We definitely are kind of moms centric, but even though ‘mom’ is in the title, there are plenty of non parents,” Lord said. “What we are promoting is based on the numbers, based on the data [and] based on the evidence. [It] is something that we all have the power as constituents, to make sure that our lawmakers hear our voices and enact safe legislation that will protect us all.”

After learning about the MDA program, juniors Margaux Francoeur and Sabrina Moore began a Cupertino-based program called Students Demand Action which primarily focuses on gun safety at schools. 

“Sabrina and Margaux especially have just been fantastic participants in many of our actions,” Lord said. “It was just especially inspirational to see the kids taking action. I think that for most of the volunteers [at] MDA, we were not active politically when we were [young children] so to see kids saying, ‘I want to have my voice heard,’ that is incredibly powerful, impactful [and] inspirational.”

Francoeur explains that along with educating community members on gun-related issues, Students Demand Action encourages members to take action by volunteering or attending events like Advocacy Days, statewide events in which students go to Sacramento and talk with legislators about what bills they want to be passed. 

Lord has had positive experiences attending Advocacy Days and feels that they are “really exciting opportunities to see democracy in action.”

“It’s incredibly inspirational to know that we are participants in democracy,” Lord said. “I’ve heard Shannon Watts [the founder of MDA] say many times that democracy is a team sport, [and] you really have to get off the sidelines and take action to get involved. On the one hand, there’s a sadness that we need to be doing this and a sadness that gun violence is so prevalent in our society, but there’s also a real sense of inspiration and motivation, knowing that there are so many people who are determined to make a difference and change the situation.” 

Along with Advocacy Day, one of Moore’s favorite memories from the club was attending a press conference with major figures like congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, in August. 

“It was really wonderful because Margaux was able to speak at [the press conference], [and] when I was speaking with the current mayor of San Jose, and he was congratulating us on our work — it made me feel acknowledged,” Moore said. “It really helped open our eyes to see that people are really receptive to hearing a student’s perspective, because hearing an adult speak about gun violence to another adult, they understand it. But, [students] are really dealing with [gun violence] every day when we come to school, and a child’s voice is extremely powerful to these people.”

Michelson similarly believes that young voices are crucial in the fight against gun violence. She adds that by asking tough questions to teachers and authoritative figures, students can start conversations on issues like voter registration and how to store guns safely. 

Despite the wide media coverage of school shootings, Francoeur feels that within Cupertino, students tend to feel disconnected from it because the vastness of the issue often makes it feel hopeless. This disconnection creates a lack of action and activity against school shootings.

“I think that before it was a tendency for me to see the news and then just get really depressed but not actually do anything about it.” Francoeur said. “But now I’m [more] in touch with the successes that we are making, and that just pushes me to want to do more and get more people involved.”

Although Francoeur and Moore recently formed the SDA program in Cupertino, they hope to expand the program.

“I would love to see even eighth graders get involved,” Moore said. “Because what’s really important for me is to see this group thrive even when we’re gone. I don’t want this to be a sort of thing where it just stops with Margaux and I. I want to see the fight for gun [control to] continue to progress, even when we’re not here.”

Despite legislation surrounding gun control being broadly discussed, Student’s Demand Action wants more changes to U.S. legislation.

“Some of it has to do with laws. Some of it has to do with outreach,” Lord said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of red flag laws, but there are laws that are on the books that, when somebody is at risk of hurting themselves or others, there’s a way to petition a judge to [temporarily remove] access to the firearm from that person. There are ways that we can work to decrease the number of mass shootings, but it is a complicated issue and there’s no one solution, unfortunately.”

The fight for safer schools has been a long lasting and ever changing battle, which Lord believes doesn’t show signs of slowing anytime soon. 

“Well, my real hope would be that we don’t need MDA [and] we can solve the gun violence crisis,” Lord said. “I believe that we can one day, but until then, I think that we need to continue to grow our presence and make sure that we have more connections with lawmakers and help elect more gun sense candidates so that we can create a safer future for our children.”