(CNN) Emma Gonzalez, a student and survivor of the Parkland, Florida, stood on stage at the March for Our Lives for 6 minutes and 20 seconds.

"Six minutes and about 20 seconds," she said. "In a little over 6 minutes, 17 of our friends were taken from us, 15 were injured and everyone in the Douglas community was forever altered."

"Everyone who was there understands. Everyone who has been touched by the cold grip of gun violence understands. For us, long, tearful, chaotic hours in the scorching afternoon sun were spent not knowing. No one understood the extent of what had happened."

"No one could believe that there were bodies in that building waiting to be identified for over a day. No one knew that the people who were missing had stopped breathing long before any of us had even known that a code red had been called."

It only took 6 minutes and 20 seconds, Gonzalez said, for a gunman and an AR-15 to extinguish the lives of the 17 students and faculty had died. She repeated the names of each of the victims and the things they would never do again.

Read More