Center City Grade School Gets National Attention for Anti-Gun Signs
More and more, the youth of America are showing that they are frustrated by gun violence, especially in their halls of learning. In recent weeks, student have taken to the streets to protest lenient gun control laws and a feeling of being unsafe in their own schools. In Center City, Philadelphia, one grade school has shown its displeasure with the current political climate with handmade signs posted all around the front doors of the school. And now, a Republican commentator, NRA member, and mother is loudly protesting the students’ displays of expression.
At a Philadelphia grade school, anti-gun messages from students infuriated a Republican mother.
At the Albert Greenfield School on Chestnut Street, brightly colored construction paper signs are covered in hand-inscribed messages like “Protect Kids, Not Guns,” “Knowledge, Not Guns,” and “NRA Go Away.” The signs express a sentiment that has been repeated over and over nationwide by American school children following the shooting in Parkland, Florida. But Erin Elmore, a Republican analyst, once campaign surrogate for President Donald Trump and a mother living in Philadelphia, thinks the signs are offensive.
Elmore says that she once considered sending her children to the Greenfield School, but now says that she is “ashamed” of the school. Elmore took pictures of the signs and posted them online, along with discussing the matter on a national news network Thursday morning. She referred to the messages on the signs as “alienating, divisive, unpatriotic and in poor taste.” She also derided the fact that there are messages that are anti-Republican and anti-NRA on the signs. Elmore is an NRA member.
The School District of Philadelphia has defended the signs and the students’ rights to hang them through spokesperson, Megan Lello: “We support students’ rights to self-expression as long as that expression does not disrupt an orderly school environment and these signs are not in violation of School District of Philadelphia policy.”
