Children of the revolution: meet the teenagers taking on Trump and the gun lobby

Not content with political responses to the shooting at their school, a group of teenagers are taking on Trump and the gun lobby — and they are a force to be reckoned with, says Philip Delves Broughton The Florida 
Protesters hold signs at a rally for gun control at the Broward County
AFP/Getty Images
Philip Delves Broughton22 February 2018

With the grown-ups stalling, America’s teenagers are taking control of the country’s stymied debate over gun laws. Provoked by last week’s shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead, they are swarming over social media and taking their protests to state houses, legislatures and even the White House.

Already, the scale and intensity of their campaign to restrict access to the kind of automatic and semi-automatic guns most often used in mass shootings is drawing comparisons with the great anti-Vietnam protests of the Sixties. The movement has attracted money and support from celebrities such as George and Amal Clooney, who gave $500,000 to March for Our Lives, a protest against gun violence being led by Stoneman Douglas students. Marches are being planned in Washington DC and across the US for March 24.

Steven Spielberg and his wife and Oprah Winfrey have matched the Clooneys’ donation. Winfrey tweeted: “George and Amal, I couldn’t agree with you more. I am joining forces with you and will match your $500,000 donation to March for Our Lives. These inspiring young people remind me of the Freedom Riders of the Sixties who also said we’ve had ENOUGH and our voices will be heard.”

Student Cameron Kasky, aged 17, took on Senator Marco Rubio yesterday. At a town hall debate, Kasky urged Rubio to stop accepting donations from the National Rifle Association. Rubio’s response was inadequate and Kasky pressed him, saying: “In the name of 17 people, you cannot ask the NRA to keep their money out of your campaign?” The story went viral, with the world on the side of Kasky. He now has 131,000 Twitter followers.

Student Cameron Kasky (L) asks Senator Marco Rubio if he will continue to accept money from the NRA during a CNN town hall meeting
REUTERS

The most prominent organiser of the protests has been Emma Gonzalez. Last Wednesday she was just another 18-year-old counting down the 110 days to graduation.

But on Saturday she was invited to speak at an anti-gun rally in Fort Lauderdale, and her pugnacious, emotional speech went viral.

“Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving,” she began. “But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it’s time for victims to be the change that we need to see.”

She attacked President Trump for taking $30 million in campaign funding from the NRA. And she blasted companies for “trying to make caricatures of the teenagers these days, saying that all we are self-involved and trend-obsessed”, with the implication that they are not worth listening to. With one 11-minute speech, Gonzalez became the face of the protest.

Emma Gonzalez reacts during her speech at a rally for gun control 
AFP/Getty Images

These protesters are social media- smart — Twitter accounts Never Again MSD has 739,000 followers, and Gonzalez has 296,000 followers. She set the account up two days after the shooting.

On Wednesday Trump spoke to a group of students and parents of those killed at Stoneman Douglas. What was intended to be a discussion of potential policy responses quickly became raw and emotional. Trump proposed arming teachers and other school employees so they can fire back at attackers, and tightening up background checks.

Samuel Zeif, 18, survived the attack on Stoneman Douglas. He texted his family from the school’s second floor as he feared he would soon be killed. At the White House he sobbed as he told the President: “Let’s never let this happen again — please, please.”

On Tuesday, three busloads of students drove 400 miles from Parkland to Florida’s capital, Tallahassee, to request tighter gun control from the state.

The few who arrived early saw lawmakers in the Republican-dominated state Capitol rush through a vote refusing even to debate a ban on the sale of assault weapons. Those students in the balcony stood open-mouthed, crying at the vote.

By Wednesday, hundreds more students from schools across Florida arrived to protest. What was planned as a series of orderly meetings in which politicians would engage in discussions with Stoneman Douglas students soon descended into rowdy confrontation.

Teenagers mobbed the door into the office of Governor Rick Scott, a Republican and supporter of gun rights, screaming: “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!” Elsewhere in the building they shouted at Republicans to “Face us Down” and challenged them on the availability of the AR-15 assault rifle, used by the accused killer, Nikolas Cruz.

The AR-15 was developed for the military with a simple purpose, to inflict as many fatal injuries in as short a period as possible. Yet it has become broadly available and is the weapon most often used in America’s mass shootings. It can fire 30 high-velocity bullets without reloading, and each bullet causes devastating physical damage.

ADAM Lanza used an AR-15 to kill 20 primary school children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, and a version of the AR was used by Omar Mateen to kill 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. But such is the power of the NRA and its supporters, they remain easy to buy.

Getty Images

Democrats are pushing to make gun control a central issue in elections later this year. They see it as a political no-win for Republicans, so many of whom, including the President, have taken the NRA’s money.

Last April, Trump became the first sitting President since Ronald Reagan to speak at the NRA’s annual convention. He told a delirious crowd: “As your President, I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Never, ever. Freedom is not a gift from government, freedom is a gift from God.” He promised he would “never, ever let you down”.

He has been true to his word. His administration has discreetly backed two NRA-supported bills to allow Americans to carry concealed firearms from state to state, and to making it easier to buy silencers.

In their initial responses to the Stoneman Douglas murders, Trump and many other Republicans took the standard NRA line after such events, focusing on the mental health of the killer rather than his access to guns.

Cruz suffered from depression and had been undergoing treatment for his mental health. He also played violent video games compulsively, for up to 15 hours a day, and five months ago wrote on someone else’s YouTube page: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”

The focus on Cruz’s mental state, however, angered Emma Gonzalez for one. In her speech she said: “We know that they are claiming mental health issues, and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this was not just a mental-health issue.

He would not have harmed that many students with a knife.”

Critics on the Right have accused the Left of using the Stoneman Douglas students to sentimentalise the debate and inject unhelpful emotions, turning all the anger on the availability of guns in the United States.

CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

That position has looked increasingly fragile this week. The students’ mastery of both traditional and social media has exploded the usual gun debate. Their punchy tweets are a far reaching counter argument.

Carl Hiaasen, the novelist and columnist at the Miami Herald, wrote following the Stoneman Douglas murders: “This is how we live today in America, where any demented soul can get his hands on an AR-15. It is not enough to lecture our kids about wearing seat belts, or not texting while they drive. Now we need to lecture them about what to do when bullets start flying.”

But this time the lectures are coming from the kids themselves.

After what they went through last week, the students at Stoneman Douglas are politically untouchable and feeling their power. While many are still too young to vote, to the rising concern of the politicians holding back reforms to America’s gun laws, they won’t be for much longer.

@delvesbroughton

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