When adults must listen to the kids

Mass shootings occur nine out of 10 days in the US and seven American children are shot dead daily. Though the death toll was so high in the recent Florida high school shooting, and the horror felt so deeply, there seems to be more surprise at the outpouring of anger and action from young people than at the massacre itself.

On one estimate, 150,000 school pupils have experienced a shooting on campus since Columbine in 1999. In these circumstances, such atrocities can come to be seen as almost inevitable — appalling, but the way things are. Teenagers are insisting that cannot be.

First came their boldness, courage and urgency, vowing “we are going to be the last shooting”; confronting Senator Marco Rubio over National Rifle Association (NRA) cash; chastening politicians: “We’re children. You guys are the adults.” Then walking out of classes and marching on the Florida state capitol and to the White House.

Recent history gives little reason to be optimistic about their campaign. The gun lobby has succeeded in presenting mass gun ownership as a foundational element of American life, long sanctified and protected by the second amendment.

The NRA’s own past gives the lie to this. In the 1930s, its president criticised “the general promiscuous toting of guns”, saying it should be “sharply restricted”.

The interpretation of the right to bear arms as a matter of individual and not collective defence gained ground only after years of lobbying and came as firms found new custom by promoting firearms as essential for personal protection.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” the NRA’s head repeated in an aggressive speech last week. President Donald Trump’s proposal to arm some teachers is the logical outcome of this argument. It is also absurd.

The Florida high school had an armed guard. Self-defence arguments have led to the US having more guns than any other country, and gun laws being loosened — yet it has more gun deaths than any other developed nation. London, February 23