Students, parents, educators, politicians, and the NRA engage in a heated discussion on gun violence

Screenshot via CNN

• Students, parents, educators, and the NRA gathered under one roof on Wednesday night to talk about how best to move forward one week after a mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school claimed 17 lives.
• The town-hall style event hosted by CNN's Jake Tapper follows days of heated discourse over gun rights in America.
• President Donald Trump held a listening session with school-shooting survivors earlier Wednesday, but declined an invite to attend the town hall, CNN said, though he has indicated his willingness to explore new gun-reform options.

A town-hall meeting held in Sunrise, Florida, on Wednesday night brought together students, parents, educators, politicians, and the NRA under one roof to talk about ways to move forward, one week after the February 14 school shooting that ended the lives of 17 people.

The event, hosted by CNN's Jake Tapper, comes after days of heated discourse around gun rights in America. That discussion focused acutely on whether laws should be changed in order to help prevent mass shootings. Such incidents have increased in regularity over the past two decades.

Dubbed "Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action," the town hall opened with a tribute to the 17 people who were killed in the February 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Within the first five minutes, Bill Nelson, the Democratic senator from Florida, called for "getting assault rifles off the streets," prompting a standing ovation.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida followed Nelson, acknowledging the shortcomings of his own party with regard to gun-law reform, and lamenting the fraught political discourse currently roiling the US. Rubio soon got an earful from Fred Guttenberg, the father of a 14-year-old girl who was killed in the Parkland, Florida, shooting.

Guttenberg told Rubio that his words and those of President Donald Trump on the matter of gun violence have been "pathetically weak."

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