The tremendous outpouring by young people all across the country this past weekend in support of meaningful gun control was absolutely spectacular. It is fair to say that no issue has galvanized America’s youth to such an extent since the 1960s, when there were protests on college campuses and in high schools about the war in Vietnam.
In the 1960s, America’s young people protested because they were being sent to fight and die in a war. They — not the bureaucrats, lobbyists, and generals in Washington – were the ones being asked to shed their blood halfway around the world.
Today, young people also are dying needlessly — though now in their own schools — because they have become the victims of the gun lobby, which is supported and protected by the politicians who are in the lobbyists’ pockets.
Hopefully, the spirit of protest that was on display this weekend will carry through to the hard work that is needed to be successful at the ballot box. The only way that the gun lobby will be defeated is if Americans, who overwhelmingly favor fair and meaningful gun control, coalesce to toss out the politicians who bow in abject fealty to the gun lobby.
The nation’s young people showed the way this past weekend — now their energy and principles must be translated into votes in November.
