Something really basic to the student-led gun control movement finally hit me as I watched the coverage yesterday — these kids are truly scared for their lives. Up to that point I’d mostly marveled at their civic engagement and energy; it took their weekend occupation of the national stage to drive home the scale of their fear. And it also struck me how the U.S. has done an amazing job over the last 70 years of making its citizens, particularly its young citizens, fear for their lives. I see a parallel between the specter of nuclear war that led to preposterous “duck and cover” drills and existential dread in millions of students during the Cold War, and the anxiety that haunts students today, when the innocent act of entering a classroom could be akin to signing their own death warrant.
Our political system having failed the young, the young have chosen to re-define the political system as including space for those purportedly not yet old enough to participate. In turn, adult commentators have expressed gratitude to these kids for showing us what hope looks like, for bringing energy that might break the logjam of gun control in this country. But however inspiring this youth movement is, it’s also an indictment of our politics, and a challenge to adults to step up to our collective failure to protect our kids and to right this failure.
To hear the NRA attacks on the protesting students is to be reminded that too many well-meaning Americans have let themselves get psyched out by a deranged and paranoid right-wing organization. Apparently, the students marching and giving speeches in favor of changing laws are actually violent radicals who are also stooges for dangerous socialist forces. Say what? Such are the out-of-touch ramblings of a morally compromised organization that itself places violence at the center of its political agenda and that backs extremist right-wing politicians. These offensive comments are sure to alienate far more people than they activate to support the NRA, and suggest that the NRA is more vulnerable than most had supposed.
For decades now, the NRA and its political supporters have fostered a culture of death in the United States, based on an extremist reading of the Second Amendment. This culture has insisted that Americans are always and ever at the peril of being killed, and that the only way to protect ourselves is to own guns so that we can shoot those trying to kill us. In doing so, they’ve ensured not only that guns of all kinds are plentiful in our country, but that any restrictions are always seen as making us less safe. The resulting permissiveness has helped create a culture of mass shootings, and ensured that guns feature in far more common incidents like domestic violence. They’ve also created a situation where easy access to guns means that around half of all gun deaths are suicides.
Now students are calling bullshit on this situation, and we all need to back them up. They’ve gotten the ball rolling, but it’s up to adults to carry this fight, to right the wrong that we’ve allowed to fester and kill far too many of us.
