PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
Hundreds attend gun-control rally outside Beaver County Courthouse :: 03/25/2018
BEAVER — Standing in solidarity with victims of gun violence, hundreds of students, teachers and local residents chanted, “Enough is enough,” during a March for Our Lives rally Saturday outside the Beaver County Courthouse.
More than 830 rallies and marches took place across the country Saturday in response to last month’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Each march echoed the same demand for “common sense” gun laws.
(Anti-Gun Citizens Demonstrating for Socialism, ed.)
“Today, young people are taking to the streets,” Amy Fazio, a member of the New Brighton Area School Board and a candidate for state representative of the 14th District, said to the crowd of more than 300. “Today, young people are saying the time is now.”
Each speaker said that change starts after the march, particularly in the voting booths.
“Today’s rally is not the end,” said Grace Dubois, a graduate of Beaver Area High School. “Tomorrow, we must call our representatives. We will vote to end gun violence.”
The mayor of Aliquippa, Dwan Walker, charged students to care for the “ones who are forgotten” because they are who need it most.
“Stand next to them; stand for your brothers and sisters,” he said. “This is when they need you. Why is it so hard to love?”
“This is about human issues,” Walker said. “It’s common sense.”
Walker said he’s not a politician but an activist. And for change to take place, he said, there has to be action.
“Stop praying for a thing and start acting,” Walker said. “Don’t be afraid.”
During the rally, students stood up, saying they are taking a stand and refusing to be afraid.
“To whom it concerns — which is anyone and everyone,” said Shaiane Matotek, an eighth-grader at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School. “Don’t be content. And if you are, then you aren’t listening.”
Dubois said she hopes for the day when children don’t have to practice active-shooter drills in school.
“I’m not a target, I’m a student who has so much life to live,” she said. “The right to own a weapon is not limitless. It does not trump my right to live.”
Sage McDanel, a Lincoln Park student, shared a poem with the crowd that pleaded for change.
“We’ve been bred into a society where guns going off in schools is a daily occurrence, where 46 children are shot a day on average, but we choose to let it happen,” McDanel said.
But Sam Piccinini, a retired police officer, said it’s not about changing laws. It’s a human problem, not a gun problem, he said.
“It’s not about the arm. It’s about the person’s intent,” Piccinini said. “You will never legislate evil out of existence.”
(Pro-2nd Amendment Citizens Demonstrating for Freedom, ed.)
Across from the March, approximately 100 people gathered with American flags, National Rifle Association hats and Donald Trump signs in an effort to stand for Second Amendment rights. Bill Fortuna, president of the Beaver Valley Rifle and Pistol Club, and Piccinini, the club’s pistol executive, formed the counter-rally 12 hours before it started.
Piccinini said the answer to ending school shootings isn’t to take away guns.
“You don’t penalize the law-abiding citizens by taking their guns away,” he said. “There are too many people who have died for our rights (to bear arms).”
Piccinini said that if a person wants shoot up a school, “where there’s a will there’s a way. There isn’t one law that can stop evil.”
One solution, Piccinini suggested, is to arm teachers: “Until we step up to the plate to arm teachers,” these shootings will still take place, he said.
“We’ve done everything to keep our children safe except one thing: arming them,” Piccinini said.
Both sides of the gun argument want the same thing, Piccinini said: to keep our children safe. But supporters of gun control are speaking out of ignorance, he said.
“An AR-15 is not an assault weapon,” Piccinini said, “The other side needs to realize they don’t have the education. They don’t have the answers to make decisions. ... They look at AR-15s as evil. The education is just not there.”
Piccinini hopes a discussion can be had between the two sides.
“I’d love to meet the people (from the march) on neutral ground and have a debate,” Piccinini said.
