Students around the country today are participating in a “National School Walk Out” on the 19th Anniversary of the Columbine Massacre to protest “Gun Violence”. The Huffington Post reported that students from 2,500 schools are expected to walk.
Here is a small sample of a list of talking points from the event organizers website nationalschoolout.net :
- We’re building a national youth movement to capture the raw energy of our generation right now.
- We are part of a generation of young people who are growing up in the shadow of gun violence. From active shooter drills in our schools to crazy proposals to arm teachers with guns, we fear losing our lives to violence in the places where we should feel most safe – our schools, our communities and our homes.
- We want to accomplish three things:
- Hold elected officials accountable
- Promote solutions to gun violence
- Demystify and engage students in the political system
- We reject the notion that the solution is to put more guns into the world. Putting a gun into any situation, makes it more dangerous and more difficult. Despite what the gun lobby wants you to think, guns don’t make you safer. Access to a firearm, at any age, triples the risk of death by suicide and doubles the risk of death by homicide.
I’d like to know where they got the statistics to make such an absurd claim. I believe it was Carl Sagan who coined the phrase “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.“.
What I do know is that the violent crime and homicide rates of countries who have banned firearms have stayed somewhat flat, and in some cases such as Ireland actually gone up. The News Blender also reported earlier this month on the rapid increase of violent knife attacks in the UK.
A Bloomberg.com article from February 12th indicates that the violent crime and homicide rates in America are actually going down.
Another Gun Control Advocacy group March for Our Lives is also supporting today’s event.
Thier National Spokesperson Emma Gonzalez took her thoughts to Twitter:
I walked out so far I ended up in NY !❤️ Remembering Columbine today in our moments of silence, in servicing our communities, and in loving each other. Orange is the color for gun violence survivors, and we wear it today in solidarity of one another. pic.twitter.com/9SFSACvMlb
— Emma González (@Emma4Change) April 20, 2018
I’m not sure that her experience of being in the schools auditorium, when shooting took place would necessarily qualify her as a “survivor” but who am I to judge? Serving as the President of her schools Gay–Straight Alliance, and her history of political activism probably had a big hand in why she was chosen as a spokesperson for the Movement. I thought it was important to include this because many of the victims who were actually wounded or in the direct line of fire, are not given nearly the attention that this Emma person is. They have real traumatic experiences they could share, while Emma is simply exploiting the experiences of others as a platform for her political activism. Guess who everyone is listening too?
Some of her Twitter followers expressed some support:
Hey Emma I want you to know that my name is Maria I'm 23 years old thanks to you I signed the #marchofourlives petition and will vote I am registered now, you inspired me to believe in America and I love and thank you for it. I stand with you and support you. God Bless you Emma.
— CRYBABY WALKER⛄ (@Maria_Costello9) April 20, 2018
Every time I read your tweets I tear because for starters you are an amazing and inspiring human but I also tear because the country is mildly in shambles. But that is also why we are here to put it back together.
— La!lan! ???️? (@TheLailani) April 20, 2018
And of course little snark
True. But the Mad Hatter is much more coherent than this president.
— Verbby (@CountVerbula) April 20, 2018
Don't wear that around any court houses or jails! They'll think you're an escapee and tackle you! Be careful, and good luck. You kids amaze me.
— mark west (@mgw002) April 20, 2018
Naturally there was a bit of opposition:
Good color. That what all the fashionable criminal conspirators are wearing these days.
— StPeter Padilla (@StpeterPadilla) April 20, 2018
"Gun violence"
Stop blaming tools and blame the psychopaths, like yourself. I understand your agenda is enevitible. So is your path beyond. pic.twitter.com/rrvwypd3W9
— Zippy the Porcupine (@Zippy_Porcupine) April 20, 2018
Don't you like… have to be IN school to do a #NationalSchoolWalkout
Just wondering…
— Zach Arack Attack (@Hanginfrmacliff) April 20, 2018
While I understand that the passions of many of the people involved in these activities is mostly genuine (to some extent), the source of that inspiration seems very contrived and more likely people jumping on a bandwagon they simply don’t understand yet. People often have to take for granted the talking points and things they hear from their friends and read on social media, largely because they are simply too busy to do much research themselves. Saving children sounds reasonable. “We don’t want to take your guns away, just keep them away from the bad people”. I can totally understand how people can easily be seduced by such arguments.
These big rally events give people a chance to feel like they are making some sort of difference in the world without actually having to do a whole lot. It’s also a very easy form of self gratification to think “I am personally making a difference!”. Oh and you might get a free t-shirt or vagina hat out of it.
I suspect all of this is doubly hard for school kids who deal with normal peer pressure on a daily basis, but then stack on a heaping pile of intolerance and shaming for not participating in certain political events. I feel horrible for our youth trying to navigate normal life today, being treated like pawns by political parties who are more concerned with sides and winning than the lives of those they pretend to must care about. Once again they are using every opportunity to exploit the malleable youth to push their agendas. Not to mention “kids” make good political shields, that you don’t even have to defend against because, well, they are kids. Oh sure they probably aren’t total monsters and believe at some level, they have someones best interests at heart (if not their own), but those best interests are based largely on populism and assimilation to indoctrination than reality.
That brings me to a point that I made on Twitter earlier today and the reason for the seemingly outrageous yet accurate headline of this story.
#NationalSchoolWalkout You think maybe choosing a day that wasn't Hitler's birthday to protest guns, might be less obvious as to the real intentions here? ?
— The Derp State ?♂️ (@LennyGhoul) April 20, 2018
What probably happened was obviously an oversight with somebody not doing a little homework. But maybe next time you might want to make sure that you don’t march in an effort to take people’s civil rights away on a day celebrating the birth of one of the most notorious fascists in history? And if you can’t get a simple detail like that right, who are you to try and rally an entire nation behind the prospect of stomping all over my civil rights! You also clearly don’t understand those either.
Repeat after me.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
