Youth offer America hope on reducing gun violence

Robert Kennedy, in his Cape Town Day of Affirmation speech, said:

The world’s hope is to rely on youth. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life, but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a predominance of courage over timidity.

Days after a gunman entered her high school and killed 17 students and teachers, Emma Gonzales, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, told a rally in Fort Lauderdale: “When adults (say) I have a right to own guns, all I can hear is my right to own a gun outweighs (your) right to live. All I hear is mine, mine, mine.” If the president wants to “come up to my face and tell me it should never have happened,” she added, “I’m going to ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.” She didn’t stop there. She continued:

“The people in power are lying to us. And the kids seem to be the only ones who notice and call BS. Politicians who sit in gilded seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could be done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence, we call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and cars. We call BS. That kids don’t know what we’re talking about, they’re too young to understand. We call BS.”

Gonzales’ classmate David Hogg was astonished that Marco Rubio learned of the tragedy and “immediately started talking” about how gun control is not the solution. “It’s terrifying,” he told the crowd, “if you can’t get elected without taking money from child murderers, why are you running?” Gonzales placed the exclamation point: “we keep telling them if they accept this blood money, they’re against children, you’re either funding the killers, or standing with the children.”

This is not the discourse of American politicians. When over 100 Parkland students went to Tallahassee to confront their representatives, Delaney Tarr said “the most legislators will say is we’ll keep you in our thoughts, you’re so strong.” But we’ve heard enough of that, she said. “We want gun laws” not prayers and best wishes.

Tyra Hemans told Florida Senate president Joe Negron: “Look me in the eyes and tell me right now that because of guns I can’t walk my hallway” without being scared of being shot. “I’ll always be reminded of the AR-15 military assault weapon shooting my classmates,” she reported. Seventeen-year-old Sammy Feuerman asked Negron, “Do you have kids, you love them, right?”

Sherry Acquaroli told Florida leaders, close up: “They were students and teachers and coaches, and they died because you failed; they are bigger heroes than you will ever be.” Emma Gonzales confronted NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch at a CNN town hall, “I want you to know we will support your children in a way you will not.”

Florida legislators responded by blocking a move to debate an assault weapons ban, as the students looked on from the gallery. They passed, instead, a resolution asserting pornography is a grave risk to children’s public health. And they approved a bill requiring the display of “In God We Trust” in schools across the state. It was like a scene from a satirical horror movie.

On the home front, House Speaker Tim Moore complained, “folks want to drag the gun debate into it, that’s a discussion for another time.” Like when, one wonders? Moore proposed a program for “volunteers” to protect North Carolina students. Rep. Larry Pittman, like Donald Trump, urged instead that we arm thousands, or millions, of school teachers. As Ron White says, “now there’s good news.”

Hundreds of Jordan High School students, like colleagues across the country, walked out of classes in solidarity. They don’t trust their government with their lives. Aminah Jenkins explained “no kid needs to go to school and worry about whether their life is in jeopardy.” Politicians’ careers may be important, but not that important.

Our politics is pitiful, so broken it humiliates us before our children. Republicans won’t fix it; they pray silently for concern over murders to pass. Democrats are used to losing. We seem not to mind. The dark heart of American exceptionalism. We’ve left it to our kids to protect themselves. And call BS.

This story was originally published March 1, 2018 at 9:52 AM with the headline "Youth offer America hope on reducing gun violence."