Artists React to Florida School Shooting Survivor’s Powerful Speech at Gun Control Rally

Ashley Iasimone
·3 min read

Emma Gonzalez, a student who survived the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., earlier this week, delivered an impassioned speech at a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale Saturday (Feb. 17). On Feb. 14, a gunman entered her school and killed 17 people. Gonzalez was in the school’s auditorium, thinking that they were just having a drill until first responders told everyone to run, CNN reports.

“How about we stop blaming the victims for something that was the student’s fault, the fault of the people who let him buy the guns in the first place, those at the gun shows, the people who encouraged him to buy accessories for his guns to make them fully automatic, the people who didn’t take them away from him when they knew he expressed homicidal tendencies?” Gonzales said, referring to President Donald Trump’s tweet that “neighbors and classmates knew” the shooter, a former student at the high school, “was a big problem.”

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She later added, “If the President wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.”

Her emotional words about gun control that called out Trump, lawmakers and gun advocates, and had the crowd chanting “Shame on you” with her, led to Gonzalez’s name trending on social media through the evening Saturday. Various musicians were among the many who shared the student’s powerful speech on social media.

“so amazed at the highschool students who have been bravely outspoken in past couple of days. using their raw anger & grief in profound ways to bring overdue change for our country,” Paramore’s Hayley Williams wrote on Twitter about the speech. “they deserve our utmost respect/attention/& help (EMMA, you are incredible).”

“YESSSSS EMMA GONZALEZ!!!!!!! Thank you for your voice, and for your bravery and honesty while using it,” Zendaya tweeted.

Pearl Jam re-tweeted the video of the speech, as did Kacey Musgraves.

Watch Gonzalez’s entire speech below, and see reactions from Hayley Williams, Zendaya, Demi Lovato and more.

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