Yesterday, there was a nationwide protest involving high school students. They were protesting the lack of action on gun access, and the argument generally is that guns are far too easy to access for people who really should never be anywhere near a gun.
The protest came on the one month anniversary of the Parkland school shooting in Florida.
Ever since that shooting, the students from Parkland have been very active, and very much in the public eye. It has been inspiring and a hopeful sign to see so many young kids actually caring enough to be very active, and to organize, although it has been equally as appalling to see supposed grown ups trash these kids, and make ugly suggestions. Some are suggesting that they are paid actors, and earlier this week, a Republican Maine lawmaker referred to 18-year-old Emma Gonzales as a "skinhead lesbian" and insulted another Parkland student. Mind you, these are supposed to be the adults, and they are supposed to set the example. Yet, they are engaging in character assassinating behavior to survivors of one of the worst school shootings in American history.
It really makes you wonder what in the hell has happened to this country.
One thing, though: these students have surprised me a bit. But it's been a pleasant surprise, not a nasty one (those kinds of surprises politically have become so common in this country that they hardly are worth getting surprised about anymore).
These kids are really bright, and they really care. They seem sure of their ultimate success, that sensible gun legislation will be passed. That is such a refreshing bit of optimism on this issue for people like me, who have seen inaction and complete stalling on this issue for not merely years, but decades now. This was an issue in the 1990's, as school shootings and other mass shootings started to be on the radar. It was a huge issue in the 2000's, and now, it jumped several degrees in the 2010's, with some of the most horrific mass shootings that we have seen yet in places like Aurora, Sandy Hook Elementary, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, and most recently, of course, in Parkland.
Yes, these kids are sure of their ultimate success. I was watching the NJ News yesterday, and one of the participating kids who was interviewed seemed to express disbelief that a whole month had passed since Parkland without any major gun legislation. One month! Again, for many of us, we have seen years turn to decades without meaningful changes in our gun laws, while other countries, during that same time period, have also dealt with mass shootings, placed sensible gun laws in the books, and never had to deal with mass shootings again.
I mean, seriously! Other countries have the same kinds of issues and problems that the United States does, including problems with people who are mentally unstable or, to be more specific and label the culprits more fairly, with violent people. Yet, there is no other country in the industrialized world with anywhere near the level of gun violence in this country, and the senselessness of mass shootings are probably the most shocking and horrifying of them.
We here in the United States are the only one who seem to take these kinds of tragedies as the "new normal," even though we all really understand that there is absolutely nothing normal about this. In other countries, these kinds of incidents are not allowed to stand. Here in this country, many feel that this is just the price to pay for freedom. I was debating a gun advocate not long after the Parkland shooting, and he made the claim that I did not know what I was talking about, because I did not have specific knowledge on the various kinds of guns. He then went on with his checkmate point, if you will, agreeing that there were indeed thousands of deaths by guns each year, but that only about 300 deaths were because of assault weapons.
Only 300 deaths. That is about 1,000 deaths every three years and change. Over the course of a decades, if those numbers remain more or less steady, then that would be 3,000 deaths. Preventable deaths, frankly.
Indeed, that seemed to me to be the point to end the discussion. When we have grown so desensitized to this kind of violence that we just shrug that assault weapons only cause around 300 deaths each year, then we have lost some of our decency, and even some of our humanity. When these kinds of events fail to shock us anymore, unless they are especially big in terms of casualties, then we indeed have lost a valuable, essential part of our humanity, and it seems to me that people who automatically fear more the possibility of losing their precious guns than in horror at the casualties after such horrors play out are indeed a huge part of the problem.
That is why I am encouraged by these kids. They saw something that impacted them, and are not blase about it. They act truly shocked and horrified by a senseless act of violence to easily committed, and right in one of their high schools. And they expect us - adults, that is - to actually do something about it. And when we collectively don't, then they are going ahead and taking matters into their own hands!
What a refreshing change when it comes to gun violence in the United States! What a bit of humanity restored! Indeed, the message is clearly echoes in one of the headlines of an article that I posted a link to below, that this young generation was raised with gun violence, but they have a simple message to us supposed adults:
We here in the United States are the only one who seem to take these kinds of tragedies as the "new normal," even though we all really understand that there is absolutely nothing normal about this. In other countries, these kinds of incidents are not allowed to stand. Here in this country, many feel that this is just the price to pay for freedom. I was debating a gun advocate not long after the Parkland shooting, and he made the claim that I did not know what I was talking about, because I did not have specific knowledge on the various kinds of guns. He then went on with his checkmate point, if you will, agreeing that there were indeed thousands of deaths by guns each year, but that only about 300 deaths were because of assault weapons.
Only 300 deaths. That is about 1,000 deaths every three years and change. Over the course of a decades, if those numbers remain more or less steady, then that would be 3,000 deaths. Preventable deaths, frankly.
Indeed, that seemed to me to be the point to end the discussion. When we have grown so desensitized to this kind of violence that we just shrug that assault weapons only cause around 300 deaths each year, then we have lost some of our decency, and even some of our humanity. When these kinds of events fail to shock us anymore, unless they are especially big in terms of casualties, then we indeed have lost a valuable, essential part of our humanity, and it seems to me that people who automatically fear more the possibility of losing their precious guns than in horror at the casualties after such horrors play out are indeed a huge part of the problem.
That is why I am encouraged by these kids. They saw something that impacted them, and are not blase about it. They act truly shocked and horrified by a senseless act of violence to easily committed, and right in one of their high schools. And they expect us - adults, that is - to actually do something about it. And when we collectively don't, then they are going ahead and taking matters into their own hands!
What a refreshing change when it comes to gun violence in the United States! What a bit of humanity restored! Indeed, the message is clearly echoes in one of the headlines of an article that I posted a link to below, that this young generation was raised with gun violence, but they have a simple message to us supposed adults:
ENOUGH!
A generation raised on gun violence sends a loud message to adults: Enough by Emanuella Grinberg and Holly Yan of CNN, March 14, 2018:
'If we keep coming together like this we will be unstoppable': Thousands of Chicago-area students walk out of schools to demand gun reform, Staff report Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2018:
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