Kids deserve a voice
Published 10:04 pm Thursday, March 22, 2018
The next issue of TIME magazine that will land in my mailbox will have student survivors from the Parkland shooting on it, and I am ready to add that to my collection.
The students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas are fighting for change, and what they are doing is inspiring.
These students deserve praise. They deserve the attention they are getting.
The five shown on the magazine, along with the rest of their classmates, are trying to do what those in Congress can’t accomplish: gun control.
Though, let’s be clear, no one is trying to take away guns that people currently own them. So, everyone with an AR-15 bumper sticker can calm down. It’s “snowflake” behavior to cry about not having easy access to military-style weapons when they have caused the deaths of countless students and teachers.
These students have been demonized by conservative media outlets, and it is because they are afraid of their power. These students have shown how powerful young adults can be, and it shows that they are capable of much more than what is expected of them. They are expected to sit down, shut up and turn a blind eye to politics. So anything more than nothing is a step in the right direction.
These students inspired a national movement to stand up for gun control. They inspired students in Suffolk to stand up and demand safer schools.
High school kids are constantly laughed at and belittled by their parents and other adults for always being on their phones and not knowing how the country works, but when they show they know a little something, it’s a bad thing.
A Republican candidate from Maine even resorted to name-calling to tear these kids down. Leslie Gibson called one of the students a “skin-head lesbian.” His defense for the comment was about upholding constitutional rights. The Constitution also used to say that black people only counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of congressional representation.
The Constitution is a living document and could always use an update. Yes, there are pros to having firearms, and I’m not disputing that. I just think it should be a little harder to get a gun, because sometimes it seems like you could get them from a vending machine in Texas.
Every student who stands up to support something to move this country in a better direction — less gun violence and more equality — deserves recognition. They deserve to not be torn down and reduced to only their age.