Florida school shooting: Teenagers are changing the conversation on gun control
Bill Goodykoontz
I have teenagers and, like any parent would tell you, they are one of the great joys of my life.
As any parent will also tell you, they’re also one of the great pains in my rear. It depends on the day. But they are always fascinating, and ever-changing.
In fact, one of the best parts of being a parent — or an uncle, which I was long before I was a dad — is watching children grow into young adults, something that usually happens somewhere between the junior and senior years of high school (your results may vary). You don’t love them any more than you did before; you just relate to them differently. If life is a bowling lane, this is the point where you get to let the bumper rails down.
A little, anyway.
Speaking truth to power
I’ve been thinking about this a lot while watching the teenagers who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, speak truth to power these last couple of weeks. As in, directly in the face of power, like when student and survivor Cameron Kasky wouldn’t let Sen. Mario Rubio off the hook during a recent CNN town hall. Sure, he’s a kid, not old enough to buy a beer. But there was nothing childish about the way he persisted in his questioning of Rubio — that was maturity a lot of grown-up reporters never achieve.
In the last couple of years, we’ve been experiencing one scandal after another, a succession of stories that in any other era would be huge but are so crammed one atop the other now that they lose their power to shock us.
This applies especially, heartbreakingly, to school shootings. They occur at a mind-numbing pace, and while everyone agrees that they are unacceptable, no one agrees on how to stop them. Ban guns. Arm teachers. Everything in-between. The reaction is always the same.
Until now. Maybe, having lived through a nightmare, they feel like they have nothing to lose. Or maybe, like Howard Beale in “Network,” they’re mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore. Whatever the case, the teenagers from Florida have had enough, and it seems as if they may finally be the ones who lead us to some kind of solution.
Make no mistake: We are living in a moment.
Is it a tipping point? Time will tell. But Saturday morning, Delta and United Airlines cut ties with the National Rifle Association. That follows on the heels of rental-car companies Avis, Hertz and Enterprise doing the same, along with Best Western hotels and MetLife.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott proposed raising the age limit to buy firearms. President Donald Trump talked about banning “bump stocks,” which enable semiautomatic weapons to fire faster (though Trump also is pushing the idea of arming teachers).
Making a difference
Meanwhile, students have staged protests. There are plans for a massive school walkout on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting. It’s exciting, reminiscent of the power young people realized and wielded in the 1960s.
And if you’re wondering, colleges such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University and others have said they won’t hold suspensions or other discipline for joining in a protest against prospective students.
Good for them. These are teenagers who suddenly have had to grow up a lot faster than they ever should have. And they are taking that newfound maturity and making the most of it.
They’re kids. They’re teenagers. They are damn sure making a difference, and it is powerful to see.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.
READ MORE:
Don't talk to kids about school shootings. Listen
Phoenix gun show attendees weigh in on gun-violence debate
Scottsdale students walk out on 3rd protest day