At City Plaza
Chico teenagers spoke out passionately Saturday against school gun violence to a crowd of thousands at City Plaza, leaving some of their older listeners not only admiring their steely resolve but in tears at their stirring words.
“Do you know how it feels to hear the ‘all clear’ in a Code Red and say ‘Thank god I’m alive’ when across the country parents are crying ‘God, why? God, why did my baby have to die, their lives stretching out before them, withering in opportunity and promise?” asked Bailey Christiansen, a 15-year-old Chico High School sophomore.
“They had nothing to lose except the one thing that was taken from them: Their Second Amendment right to protect themselves with an assault rifle. Wait, what!? No! God, no! It was their lives that were taken, stolen, ripped away … and their souls too young to leave our world that were taken.”