Tuesday, July 04, 2023

Independence doesn't exist for many of our youngest Americans.



July 3, 2023
By Silas Morgan

Growing up, Joaquin “Guac” Oliver (click here) was “always worried about community issues,” recalled his mother, Patricia Oliver.

“[He worried] about his friends, about immigration, about social issues,” she said. “… When Joaquin was 12 years old, he was able to write a project about [firearm purchase] background checks, when he just was 12 years old. He was posting on Twitter, he was tweeting about all that happened in Sandy Hook.”

In February 2018, Joaquin was one of the 17 people killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland. His parents, Patricia and her husband Manuel Oliver, have spent the years since the shooting raising awareness for gun violence prevention in honor of their son, following in his footsteps as an activist.

On Monday, they joined the families of other mass shooting victims and mass shooting survivors for a gun violence prevention rally at the Pulse Memorial....