You might have seen the video already, because it's been making the rounds on social media. It's a speech Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas HS shooting, gave to news outlets. It's powerful and it hits like a gut punch.
Now, the graph.
Image courtesy of Nate Silver and fivethirtyeight.com
Nate Silver says the students speaking out is having an effect, and I believe he's correct. The Stoneman Douglas HS students could be the catalyst that finally gets some heavily-supported gun control measures implemented. Now, it's great to see teenagers get involved in activism, defying the "lazy, apathetic slacker" label adults apply to them. But think about what's going on here for a second.
These teenagers speaking out seems to be what's making a difference. It's not kids and teenagers dying that's tipping the scales, because we already had Sandy Hook, Columbine, and Virginia Tech, and none of them led to meaningful change. No, the teenagers had to make their voices heard, loudly and often, to shake up the status quo even a tiny bit. Instead of
doing normal teenager things like going to prom and playing sports,
these students are spearheading the latest movement for stricter gun
control legislation. What does that say about us as a country?
It shouldn't take a band of high school students invoking their murdered classmates to produce meaningful change. That's a job for older adults: parents, community leaders, legislators. Adults are the ones old enough to vote, to contribute to candidates, and to run for office, so we are responsible for operating the institution of government. And yet, we've failed to even have a discussion about mass shootings. It should not be this way. We, as a nation, have failed our children.
What's more, our politicians have failed us. Instead of even engaging in thoughtful debate over gun legislation, they have repeatedly ducked the issue. Now, maybe the research would show that no form of gun control could make a difference (I seriously doubt that), but the point is to at least address the issue. The politicians' refusal to do so shows how little they think of us, or how out of touch they are. Or a combination of the two.
On top of that, it exposes a deeper problem afflicting our government: money in politics. Emma Gonzalez and others have rightly pointed out the causal relationship between a politician's refusal to discuss the issue and the sizeable check he or she gets from the NRA. Like Marco Rubio, who is one of the students' two Senators. Rubio doesn't think the days following a massacre that left seventeen of his constituents dead is a good time to discuss gun violence; could it be because he's the NRA's third-highest recipient? Any government that prioritizes keeping the moneyed donors happy over tackling problems that are literally killing people is a deeply broken and dysfunctional government.
It's frustrating and shameful that our country is so unable to achieve meaningful change, and that our politicians are so unresponsive. But it's a damn disgrace that it takes teenagers, a demographic that is legally prohibited from wielding many forms of political power, to nudge the system even an iota. Something is deeply, systemically wrong when it comes to that.
Our politicians are failing us, but we are also failing, as citizens and as responsible adults.
It's time to do better.
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