How Parkland Students Changed the Gun Debate
Le mouvement initié par les étudiants de Parkland.
Depuis la fusillade du 14 février dernier, les élèves du lycée Stoneman Douglas de Floride, aux Etats-Unis, n’ont eu de cesse de militer pour une réforme de la législation sur les armes à feu. Ils ont réussi à rallier des millions d’Américains à leur cause et à installer la question du contrôle des armes à feu dans le débat public de manière durable. Comment sont-ils devenus les visages du mouvement anti-armes ?
Eighteen-year-old Sabrina Fernandez is the student-body president of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. She lives next door to my oldest friend and has graciously agreed to share insights on how she and her classmates are weathering the aftermath of the February 14 mass shooting— especially amid the national frenzy surrounding the #NeverAgain movement that some of the survivors launched to push for gun-law reform.
MESSAGE FOR THE POLITICAL LEADERS
2. Fernandez is not one of the high-profile teens leading the #NeverAgain charge in the media. But she is no less serious about shaking up the system, and she is crystal clear about the message that she and her fellow survivors want to send political leaders and the public more broadly: “That this change will not be pushed to the side. We will not just be another statistic. We will NOT stop until we see change!” It’s hard not to be awed by the Stoneman Douglas students. They have been through a trauma that would leave most adults curled in a prenatal pretzel under the bed. But these teens have elbowed their way into one of this nation’s most vicious policy debates, demanding to have their say.
ON EVERY FRONT
3. Such efforts by survivors have rightly captured the public’s attention. Already they have travelled to Tallahassee, Florida, and Washington, D.C. to make their case for stricter gun laws. They have organized protests and marches and rallies that, thanks to social media, have spawned similar efforts. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are precisely the type of self-confident, socially aware teens poised to change the gun-control debates across the nation. They have raised $3.7 million for future events. They have given speeches and interviews, written op-eds, and gone toe-to-toe on national TV with pro-gun politicians and activists. They have used social media to respond to snarky critics. op-ed article d'opinion, tribune / to go, went, gone toe-to-toe with affronter, croiser le fer avec / snarky sarcastique.
Comment les lycéens de Parkland ont fait bouger le débat sur le contrôle des armes
DARLINGS OF THE MEDIA
4. Jaded political and media types have been especially impressed. Every time you check the news, some elected official or journalist or pundit or reform advocate is publicly marveling at how these teens are a force unlike anything the gun debate has ever before witnessed. “Why the Parkland Kids May Be Different,” teased a Washington Post headline. “I’ve been covering mass shootings for decades. I’ve never seen a phenomenon like these students,” declared the subhead of a Politico piece.
A UNIQUE VOICE IN THE GUN DEBATE
5. Possessed of that blend of innocence and savvy peculiar to teenagers, the Stoneman Douglas survivors indeed have emerged as a rare, perhaps even unique, voice in the gun debate. They are old enough to advocate for themselves, yet young enough to still embody a certain innocence, to retain a certain idealism about how the world should be.
6. More specifically, Parkland—a highly educated, affluent, white-collar enclave—tends to produce the kind of self-confident, socially aware, media-savvy youth who believe that they can change the world. These are teens who’ve been raised to know their value, to expect their voices to be heard—and who have the cultural resources and knowhow to navigate the system. “We are equipped because of our amazing teachers and the education they have provided for us to now use,” Fernandez explained.
BREAKING THE CYCLE
7. These students are not naive. They have watched the nightmare of mass shootings play out on the public stage often enough to know the drill: The nation is overcome with sorrow and outrage for a couple of days, after which comes the pushback from gun-rights forces, the shifting of the political discussion from guns to mental health or bullying or terrorism or violent video games or angry young men, the drifting of public attention, the lack of action by lawmakers, and, finally, the quiet realization by all that nothing is going to change.
8. This is the precisely cycle that Fernandez and her classmates are determined to break. They understand that to have an impact, they do not have time simply to grieve. They must speak out and mobilize right now, before the initial shock of the slaughter fades and the public loses interest.
SUCCESSES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
9. For her part, Fernandez is encouraged by the movement’s early progress. Indeed, #NeverAgain has already affected the debate. Last week, Oregon lawmakers tightened up some gun restrictions, while Florida lawmakers are hammering out a deal to impose a higher age limit and a longer waiting period for purchasing semiautomatic rifles like the one used at Stoneman Douglas. Just as notably, public outrage is prompting a smattering of corporations to rethink their ties to the NRA.
10. That said, the Parkland students have also faced some early disappointments. Six days after the shooting, Florida state lawmakers voted against even debating a broad ban on semiautomatic rifles. More narrowly, despite being pressed on the issue at CNN’s Town Hall, Rubio would not agree to reject campaign contributions from the NRA. GOP lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are out pitching the usual warnings against rushing to embrace new gun restrictions. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s arm-the-teachers talk comes straight out of the NRA’s playbook.
11. Then again, all grand reform movements are failures until they aren’t. Even if the Stoneman Douglas students don’t win much in the way of concrete reforms any time soon, they have succeeded in forcing the debate out of its usual rut—a feat that in itself had begun to seem impossible.
They must speak out and mobilize right now, before the initial shock of the slaughter fades.