Across the country, including here in South County, students on Wednesday left their classrooms as part of the National School Walkout.
The protest was, in part, a call by teens demanding changes to gun control laws after 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., were gunned down by a former student in a mass shooting.
It was not the first massacre on a school campus in the United States. Tragically and in all likelihood it will not be the last.
Think about that for a moment. Think about that at least once a day for the rest of your child’s life.
Many of the surviving students, angered that there classmates were gunned down by Nikolas Cruz, 19, who used an assault style weapon to kill their friends, captured the public’s attention with the articulate way they expressed their rage.
Time and again they have been featured in news stories and talk shows as they demanded a more thorough, even stricter, approach to determining who has access to guns and which guns they have access to.
Their guiding principle is they should not have to worry about getting blown away en masse every time they set foot on campus. Seems reasonable.
As expected the perfunctory wishes of consoling thoughts and prayers inundated the students and the community. Elected officials at every level said the right things, presented the appropriate level of concern without making outlandish commitments.
Surprisingly Florida’s governor recently signed into law stricter gun measures including the raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 and extending a waiting period.
Not surprisingly other governors have been slow to follow Florida’s lead and the National Rifle Association has sued the state claiming the legislation is unconstitutional. Gun advocates have promised to fight tooth and nail any efforts to control access to arms.
This is what students are facing. It is my hope that young people are prepared for the war of attrition ahead of them.
The NRA, gun lobbyists and gun owners will not give up without a fight or pouring waterfalls of money into their cause. They will wait. They know time is on their side.
They know, because history has shown since the days of Columbine High School that the public’s initial outrage diminishes over time; the media’s attention gets drawn to other news stories; and politicians heavily financed by gun lobbyists will drag their feet until their constituents are distracted by other worries or overwhelmed by hopelessness and apathy.
The gun lobby is counting on the attention and outrage diminishing over time and that no significant restrictions will materialize. They are in it for the long haul.
I hope the kids are ready for that battle ahead. It could be a matter of life and death.
