Maui Students Call for Action on Gun Violence at Concert for Our Lives

March 24, 2018, 7:40 PM HST
* Updated March 26, 5:30 AM

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Hundreds of students and community members braved the inclement weather to attended Saturday night’s Concert for Our Lives Maui at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center and March for Our Lives at UH Maui College, organized by youth advocating for safer schools and an end to gun violence.

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Landon McNamara singing “Loss for Words” at MACC for Concert for our Life event.

The sold-out concert drew a star-studded lineup of entertainers including the likes of Jack Johnson, Willie Nelson, Willie K, Landon McNamara and Lily Meola.

US Senator Mazie K. Hirono was among the lawmakers who spoke to the crowd, calling the event part of a “movement that will inspire a generation.

“Activists from across the country and around the world came together today to demand sensible gun legislation that will close background check loopholes, eliminate bump stocks, and prevent anyone from owning assault weapons,” said Senator Hirono. “If these bills pass, it will be because of you and the movement we are all joining. I stand with you because we are all in this together.”

Senator Hirono and March for Our Lives Maui student organizers from Baldwin High School

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Following her remarks, Senator Hirono introduced a video following the journey of a two-and-a-half-mile lei of aloha sent from Hawaiʻi students to Parkland, Florida. The Lei of Aloha for World Peace project previously sent lei to the survivors of mass shootings in Las Vegas and Orlando, and to survivors of the 2015 Paris bombing.

Senator Hirono is a supporter of what she calls “common sense gun safety legislation” in the Senate. Last year, she introduced a bill that seeks to close a loophole in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that allows convicted abusers to purchase firearms. She said closing this loophole could have helped to prevent the shooter in Sutherland Springs, Texas, from accessing the firearm that he used to kill 26 people while they attended church.

Last year she also joined Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in reintroducing legislation that would ban the sale, transfer, manufacture, and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Senator Hirono has also co-sponsored legislation that would strengthen the criminal background check system, ban high capacity ammunition magazines, prevent domestic abusers from accessing firearms, repeal the Dickey Amendment, and make straw purchasing and firearms trafficking federal crimes.