Editorial: The March for Our Lives
If you have been on Earth and had any communication with other humans the past few weeks, you have probably heard about “The March for Our Lives”, or at least what started it.
On Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2018 there was a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which took 17 lives.
Now students decided to turn their grief into motivation, to send a message to Washington to help stop this tragedy from ever happening again. One of the many teens trying to make a difference, Emma Gonzalez, wrote a speech called “We Call BS” that seemed to go viral on social media. Her speech outlined the problem of the government applying gun control to stop these kinds of things, calling out the NRA (National Rifle Association) and government officials and parties that took boosters or campaign contributions from them. Isn’t taking money from the NRA like taking blood money. The NRA opposes gun control, which is needed to put an end to these horrific acts.
The main misunderstanding in this situation is that people think that activists are trying to get guns banned in the United States. In actuality, they are just trying to the government to apply more regulations to purchase guns and what type of guns. One example of this was a law that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to wield a gun, which President Trump repealed. On that matter, the shooter’s acts are trying to be justified or explained because of mental illness or him being a “broken child”. That is a ridiculous because there are many people suffering from mental illnesses or problems who are not doing terrible acts. Although, back to the matter of if this law could have stopped this act from happening if that claim was true.
Others, like Marco Rubio, say that these tragedies will still happen, but Emma’s response to this is simply that we could still make it harder to do so.
Now President Trump has given those affected his “prayers and condolences.” What does that do, you may ask? Absolutely nothing. Rather than blaming the FBI for not following the tip about the shooter or making this about campaign drama, President Trump should change something. After all, wasn’t that really what the campaign was about? Furthermore, I bring to your attention the fact that the NRA has given him money, might this be why? After all, he was a businessman long before he was a politician.
“The March for Our Lives” is a movement mainly focused on a peaceful protest being held in Washington D.C. on March 24th. This protest will be for the purpose of gun control. Also, the movement is issuing a nationwide school walkout in support of this (a list of organized marches will be released to the public soon).
You may wonder how these teens will have the resources to organize a nationwide movement. Remember Emma’s speech? Following that, numerous celebrities have donated massive amounts of money and have reached out to these teens (compared to the “Freedom Fighters” of the 1960s by Oprah Winfrey) to help this happen.
In addition, some politicians are claiming that teens are being driven by Democratic notions or are being manipuled by democrats. In actuality, Parkland is a relatively rich, republican area. This just shows that gun control is its own separate issue disregarding political parties.
These teens are already making a difference, seeing that many companies among Delta, United, Budget, and National have stopped accepting donations from the NRA.
These teens are doing something the government is not, causing changes.