
[caption id="attachment_31003" align="alignnone" width="750"]
Katie Eder, an organizer of 50 Miles More. (Courtesy of Katie Eder)[/caption]
Hundreds of thousands of students all over the country took to the streets on March 24th to march for gun control and to say #NeverAgain to deaths from gun violence. Katie Eder, age 18, and some of her classmates at Shorewood High School in Wisconsin are taking their passion for the cause one step further -- or, more accurately, 50 miles further. Katie helped organize 50 Miles More, a plan to march 50 miles to the hometown of Republican congressman Paul Ryan, who serves as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
https://twitter.com/50milesmore/status/978292049685475329
Youth Radio caught up with Katie before her group's march to find out more about the 50 Miles More movement.
Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Youth Radio: How does 50 Miles More work?
Katie Eder: Everyone came to Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday night, and then we started marching bright and early Sunday morning. We're walking 50 miles from Madison to Janesville, Wisconsin, the hometown of Speaker of the House Congressman Paul Ryan.
It's 50 miles from Madison to Janesville, and we're taking four days to do the march, so we'll arrive Wednesday, March 28th, around 12 noon.
YR: How did you come up with the concept for 50 Miles More?
KE: Right after the Parkland shooting, it became very clear that those students were standing up and speaking out and saying enough is enough. In Wisconsin, myself and students from around the Milwaukee area, we all got together and said, "What can we do, and how can we help?" Because you know this is an issue that affects every young person in every school in America, we want to make sure that all of our voices are heard.
https://twitter.com/50milesmore/status/978650809238982657
Fifty-four miles was the [length of the] 1965 Selma to Montgomery march during the civil rights movement. That was an example of young people standing up and making a change and making the impossible possible. And that's what we're trying to do.
YR: What are your plans for the 50-mile stretch?
KE: We're going to march about 13 miles a day and then high schools along the route are opening up their school gyms to let us sleep there at night.
https://twitter.com/50milesmore/status/978472979419029504
For the march itself, we think there are going to be 40 young people who do the whole thing.
https://twitter.com/shannonca_/status/978708226991689733
At our final day rally in Janesville, we're hoping to have upwards a couple hundred -- maybe even a thousand -- people show up to sort of welcome our marches into Janesville and call upon Speaker Ryan to make a change.
https://twitter.com/50milesmore/status/978650343713095680
After the rally on Wednesday, we're busing kids back to their hometown.
YR: How much support has your group received from people in Wisconsin?
KE: There are definitely a lot of people in Wisconsin who are very big supporters of the Second Amendment to the extreme. I think we're definitely going to encounter some of that on our walk, and we're prepared for that. We're matching with young people from towns that I think normally swing right. What I'm seeing, especially in the young people, is that this is connecting people across geographical lines in a way that most other issues wouldn't.
No matter what you're doing or what your cause is, there will be people that don't agree with you. But I would say there is surprisingly an overwhelming amount of support.
YR: What do you hope this accomplishes?
KE: We're asking for three things to change legislatively:

- The first is we want a complete ban on all military-style weapons -- the weapons of war -- from the civilian society. [This level of weaponry] really just doesn't need to be available to the general public.
- Two, we want a ban on all to all accessories that turn semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons, like the stuff that was used in the Las Vegas shooting.
- And importantly we want increased regulation on gun purchasing, so that would include stricter background checks, higher purchasing age and longer waiting periods.
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