On Wednesday, Feb. 14, students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were panicked and afraid, fearing for their own lives as gunman Nikolas Cruz, 19, fired multiple gunshots throughout the school’s property.

17 innocent lives were lost that day, and now, just a week after this horrific event, survivors, parents, and local authorities alike are challenging the current gun laws set in the United States with a movement known as #NeverAgain.

Of course, every debate has two sides. And, in this instance, students are making their opinion crystal clear. One survivor of the shooting, sophomore Tanzil Philp, said that “Our message is very simple. Never again. This never should have happened.”

Essentially, the goal of this movement is to find a solution to this school shooting outbreak, one that has been sweeping violently across the U.S. in recent years especially.

On the night of Feb. 21, a town hall meeting was held in Parkland, Fl., the town where this mass murder occurred. At this event, people in pain spoke directly to Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson, Republican Ted Deutsch, and NRA (National Rifle Association) spokeswoman Dana Loesch.

Fred Guttenberg, father of the late Jaime Guttenberg, spoke to Rubio in an angered tone. He said, “Your comments… have been pathetically weak.”

Ryan Deitsch, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, questioned aloud, “Why do we have to speak out to the Capital, why do we have to march on Washington, just to save innocent lives?”

Senior Chris Grady spoke out as well, stating, “We need you and your colleagues on both sides to come together with us and find compromise if we are ever to solve this epidemic that is plaguing our country.”

Earlier in the week, on Saturday, Feb. 17, senior Emma Gonzales gave a moving speech in Parkland: “We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. Not because we’re going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because…we are going to be the last mass shooting.”

#NeverAgain is, quite evidently, an influential, inspirational movement, and the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are the activists in charge.