Rep. Jared Huffman holds North Bay student-led summit on gun violence

SAN RAFAEL - Congressman Jared Huffman challenged hundreds of North Bay teens Sunday at a summit on school safety and gun violence protection to maintain their momentum pushing for stricter gun laws.

The summit came days after thousands of North Bay students walked out of school and joined a nationwide protest against gun violence in the aftermath of last month’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Emma González, a survivor of the mass shooting, had been scheduled to take part Sunday but canceled because of a scheduling conflict. Bradley Thornton, a 2016 Marjory Stoneman Douglas graduate, instead joined the student-led discussion via Skype.

“There is a lot of evidence right now about the power of young voices,” Huffman, D-San Rafael, said from the stage at Dominican University of California. “These young people from Parkland, Florida are showing us that young people are incredibly persuasive advocates.

“Many of us have been beating our head against the wall of gun reform for years and getting nowhere, and along come these young people who are stepping up and speaking so eloquently. They are changing the country and changing the world in ways that we can’t. I hope that’s a lesson and inspiration for all of you.”

The high school survivors have renewed the debate over the nation’s gun laws since the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 students and educators dead. They formed the #NeverAgain movement, where they have been calling on state and federal officials for tougher gun control, including stricter background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

Huffman, who served as the moderator, invited onstage several area advocates working to end gun violence, as well as 15 youths from across the North Bay, including Mary Flagerman, a senior at Petaluma’s Casa Grande High School, where the congressman spoke earlier this month.

Flagerman, who took part in a “walk in” at her school Wednesday to honor the Parkland shooting victims, spoke out against the Trump administration’s proposal to arm teachers. Casa Grande High is a close-knit campus, and arming teachers would ruin that culture, she argued.

“If teachers are super uncomfortable about it, students are more so,” Flagerman, 17, said before heading onstage.

Students, parents and community members packed the 850-seat Angelico Hall to listen to Huffman and students talk about curbing gun violence and boosting school safety, while urging youths to register to vote and get civically engaged.

One student, Jake Cohen of Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, vowed to run for public office upon turning 18.

“Just because we have less age doesn’t mean we have less power,” Cohen said.

Like Flagerman and other students on the panel, Kenilworth Junior High eighth-grader Haley Kavanaugh, attending the summit with her parents, also opposed arming teachers.

“People are afraid of gunmen, yet others want to have more guns (on campus). That makes no sense,” said Kavanaugh, 13, who sat in a front-row seat between her parents, Natalie and Jim Kavanaugh.

“Since Columbine, I have been very concerned about school violence. I watched one tragic event after another,” Natalie Kavanaugh, 55, said. “I now have a student in the line of fire. It’s very frightening.”

Huffman, who fielded questions from students on the stage, said it would be up to states and possibly local school districts to arm teachers, which, he added, is unlikely to happen in the North Bay and North Coast. He called the Trump administration’s proposal a “distraction.”

“All of this is preventing us from focusing on a handful of really sensible things we can do that are close to consensus when you look at the polling on background checks and assault weapons,” he said.

Haley Kavanaugh, who was wearing a T-shirt that read “Young and Powerful,” said she’s not calling for a total ban on guns - her family owns hunting rifles. She just wants to see the purchase of assault rifles prohibited.

Novato High School sophomore Shannon Duggan also called for the ban of military-style weapons.

She said she felt empowered listening to other students speak out in support of gun reform. In the past, it felt as if people weren’t listening to youths, she said. But not anymore: The country is paying attention, and Sunday’s summit was proof of that, she said.

“In a few years, we’re making the decisions here in this country. ... We’re going to be making the changes that our parents and grandparents failed to make,” Duggan, 15, said after the meeting. “There needs to be common sense gun laws, and we need to make changes on every level - federal, state and local.”