American Kids
These kids were born into a country that knows no peace.
The Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999 was the site of the largest high-profile mass murder at a primary school in the United States. Since that time, 122 children and young adults have died in 10 mass murders at schools. The massacres continue to the point that Wikipedia, CNN and others have lists of these events that are updated regularly.
We live in a country that has the most privately-owned firearms in the world. The US has seen the number of guns in private circulation grow to 112 guns per 100 people. That is more than one gun per person. By comparison, all of the government entities in the US combined only have 4.25 million guns.
Serbia, Yemen, Switzerland, and Cyprus are the other countries that follow the US in international gun ownership rates. None of them have ever had a mass murder at a school. At the current rate of growth, we are poised to have double the number of handguns per capita than Serbia in the next few years.
These kids are craving peace and protection, not more weapons.
These kids live in a country that has some of the most permissive firearm ownership regulations in the developed world.
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution states:
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.
There is not general consensus on what it means to infringe upon someone’s right to bear arms — or what, indeed, the 2nd Amendment even means to a modern society.
Guns are regulated at the federal level by three laws and the 2nd Amendment. The last major legislation to pass was the Brady Act in 1993 which implemented background checks through an FBI database.
The Supreme Court has intervened in many cases to limit the right of the federal government to make laws that restrict gun ownership, most recently in District of Columbia v. Heller where the court decided that a ban on handguns in D.C. was an “infringement”.
State laws are all over the map. Many states don’t require licenses or registration of firearms at all. Some states have more strict laws that require some measure of red-tape to acquire or possess a gun. No state has a ban on concealed-carry, but there are generally gun-free zones around schools.
These kids know that it’s time for the federal government to take some responsibility for this state of affairs.
These kids live in a country where we can’t have an honest conversation about guns.
The NRA has become one of the most effective lobbying forces in the country. They were the 9th largest donor to pro-gun causes and candidates in the 2016 election, spending $60 million. The NRA has spent $203 million on political activities since 1998–the majority of it after Columbine.
This single group has made it almost impossible to win a national election as a Republican without an “A” rating. A plurality of Republican members of congress and some Democrats receive funding from this organization. They have lobbied to have the CDC prevented from doing crucial public health research on the effects of guns, removing critical data from our dialogue. Their lobbying activities on a state level are just as large and tilted, with the NRA drafting pro-gun legislation for passage in legislatures around the country.
The influence of the NRA is only one piece of the puzzle, however. The landmark Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC ruled that corporations cannot be barred from spending money in elections. This has led to unlimited amounts of funding, commercials and other spending flowing into our elections. Corporations are, in effect, people according to Citizens United. The propaganda well is now packed full of differing opinions, lies and deception on all sides of our political debate.
Our society has become increasingly atomized and confrontational. The “you’re either with us, or against us” mentality has become dominant in American culture in the past decade or so.
The confluence of these societal influences has caused a paradigm shift in how laws get made. We no longer have a voice that matters to the people who represent us in our government. Many politicians have even refused to meet with the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings. These same people regularly refuse to meet with anyone who’s views differ from their own.
Reasonable people, including some members of the NRA, would argue that more safety training and licensing are important aspects of our discussion, but these arguments are frozen out in favor of a zero-sum approach to gun control. We can’t have a rational argument at the dinner table, much less in the public sphere. The social pressures are immense and these kids know it better than any of us.
These kids grew up in a world with the Internet
They are technologically savvy, hyper-communicative and motivated to create a better world. They know what’s going on and they know how to organize in a heartbeat. They understand that change can only happen if they are vocal and proactive. They understand that AR-15s and more than 300 million guns have no place in a modern society. They know that politicians have no idea what power they hold.
I have hope for the future. This hope is born from the deaths of the children in Florida. The survivors of the latest tragedy to befall a school in the United States have shown that they are more than ready to lead us to a new place as a society. They are leading the next generation—my 9 year old son as well.
I’m right there with them.
