Gun Control and the March for Our Lives
On Wednesday, February 14, 2018, over millions of kids across America got ready to face the day. They went to school, a place teenagers go to learn and grow. 17 of them didn’t make it home that night. It is a tragedy, and a scene replaying itself across America far too often. But this time, the shooting is not the end of the story.
After the shooting, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School, or MSD, refused to be just another set of victims, another set of statistics. After a school shooting, the event normally turns into a new political push button, another set of crying parents and shrines to serve as a shiny thing in the public eye until the newness wears off and people forget. At MSD, the students decided that what happened to them wasn’t just sad. They saw it as the result of years of ignoring the need for laws around the control of the weapon used to perpetuate this terrible crime: guns. They decided to start the hashtag #NeverAgain, and as time moved on, March for Our Lives was born.
On March 24, 2018, students came from MSD, as well as all over the country to protest on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., mere blocks from the White House. The March for Our Lives rally was a marvel to see. When you think of political rallies, you picture a group of adults, of lobbyists and lifelong activists fighting on opposing sides. With this rally, with this movement, things look different. Thousands of kids of all ages filled the streets, there were over 800 sister marches, and celebrities gave the cause vocal and financial support. There is a unity of cause unparalleled in most modern movements. There was also a desperation. “We want change!” the crowd chanted at the close of the D.C. rally.
Even with a few months perspective on the rally, there is no doubt there is something powerful about March for Our Lives, the way it brought kids together, a part of the population with a lot less political power and agency. But these kids have tools that previous movements have not. When people cried for gun control after Columbine, a school shooting and failed school bombing in 1999, the NRA bought the airspace to drown them out. In 2012, when Sandy Hook Elementary School had the horror of a school shooting befall them, gun control wasn’t exactly the first thought. You wouldn’t expect a six or seven-year-old to fight for change before they can spell it. But Parkland happened in 2018, in a time where information moves faster than the news cycle, and in a world where you don’t have to buy the airtime to get eyes on you. The narrative is no longer in the hands of politicians, but the people who have lived the story.
With the addition of the Santa Fe shooting on May 18, school shootings have been deadlier than the military this year in America, according to the Washington Post. What happened at Parkland has faded from the news cycle, and the March for Our Lives movement has turned to more of a hum compared to the roar it was initially. The conversation has mostly shifted from gun control to shooting prevention. Yet, the March for Our Lives hangs on. It survives to fight another day. While adults across the country talk about limited entry and metal detectors, a generation of kids taught to bring about the change they want to see are working towards gun control. A solution that they believe allows not just their schools, but their cities, and their country to be a safe place to learn and grow.
By Fikunmi Kilanko
Please note that the opinions expressed are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.
