Shame on those who criticize Parkland’s young activists

It is so easy to sit in your living room while watching TV and question and criticize the intentions of these amazing, bright and beautiful young people — the generation of our future — who experienced the hell of a mass execution in their classrooms; a place to be safe, a place to enjoy learning and a place of social development.

Suddenly, on Valentine’s Day, the window of their classroom door is smashed and a long AR-15 rifle is poked through and immediately begins randomly shooting to kill — anybody. Just kill. They curled up on the floors of their classrooms while a sole shooter used a weapon of war — the same weapon our nation’s troops use in battle — to effect mass killings with the greatest of speed and efficiency.

And these surviving children and teachers will now live with this trauma for the rest of their lives.

Yet we have people who actually have the audacity to criticize these young people for wanting to rid our nation of these weapons of war so that other children and other families will hopefully not have to experience what they did.

I wonder how you would be reacting if it were your little girl or son who was being shot at in their classroom. Perhaps it would do all of us some good if we could simply learn to empathize with what others have been through and be a bit more compassionate rather than judgmental.

Maybe we should watch those videos again, and again, and then thank God that it wasn’t our children in those rooms — the rooms of Sandy Hook, the rooms of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the rooms of Columbine, the Pulse nightclub, the church in Sutherland Springs, the people enjoying an evening in Las Vegas, the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., or the wellintentioned employee birthday party in San Bernardino.

For those who would be critical of the motives or intentions of these unbelievably bright and beautiful students, I respectfully request that you give this a bit deeper thought instead of being so easily influenced by those you see on TV who have their own personal agenda for being so pro mass murder weapons.

For the students who are leading this nationwide effort, I can only say thank you on behalf of the millions and millions of Americans who stand 100 percent with you. Please keep it up and don’t let a handful of naysayers ever dissuade you. The country loves each and every one of you.