I am asking you to stand with me and millions of other Americans to support and empower the student-led movement March For Our Lives.

The traumatized, courageous teenagers from Parkland, Florida who have stood up over the past week to condemn Donald Trump, lawmakers, and the NRA and gun manufacturing corporations that fund them, have won our hearts.

It feels like a moment of ‘no turning back.’  But in order to make real change happen – not just a ban on bump stocks, but outlawing the sale of AR-15s and assault weapons altogether – it’s going to take all of our voices speaking as one.

Congress has failed our young people.

As long as corporate gun manufacturers and their lobby agencies, like the NRA, are buying influence in Congress we, the American people, will continue to bury our young.

That is why I stand 100% behind the youth who are organizing the National School Walkout on March 14 and the March For Our Lives happening in DC and nationwide on March 24.

California has been making headway on regulating the purchase and firepower associated with these military-style weapons.

As your Lieutenant Governor, I will do everything in my power to protect Californians from gun violence.  Now, with the regularity we’re seeing of mass shootings by people carrying assault rifles, the urgency is upon us to act.

Our elected representatives need to know it is no longer acceptable to receive money from the NRA at the cost of losing our children like we did tragically last week. We must turn around on guns – and we can start with a renewed assault weapons ban that will work to keep instruments of terror like the AR-15 out of the hands of killers. In the words of Senator Bernie Sanders: “These weapons are not for hunting. They’re for killing human beings.”  We need tighter background checks as well.

And, we need to reignite a national conversation about the example that our government is setting.  With governmental use of violence so readily through police killings and through wars and military force, it should not be surprising to us that our children would imitate it.  Neither can we ignore ongoing U.S. arms dealings abroad, which fuels conflicts and civil wars that greatly harm civilians including children.  It’s time for shifting away from this culture of violence and cultivating a culture of peace as an example for our youth.

No issue hits us harder than the senseless slaughter of schoolchildren.  I run for political office to make a difference and to fight back in the face of injustice and tragedy.

Help me support the brave young leaders who have sparked a national movement, and together we can end the senseless gun violence that is tearing American families and communities apart.