Florida shooting survivors must not only be heard but force longterm change too
One of the most inspiring stories of the last few days has been the way young people caught up in the appalling shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida have called their political leaders to account for their inaction on gun control.
When Republicans funded by the National Rifle Association sent them “thoughts and prayers” and opined that now is not the time for a debate about gun control because survivors needed to be left to grieve, the survivors roared back.
Now is exactly the time for us to talk about this, they said. Stop taking the NRA’s blood money and act already, they said. You can start by clamping down on the sale of military grade weapons designed for the sole purpose of killing people like our friends. They refused to be silenced even as the dogs of the right wing smeared and abused them online.
The British writer Dan Hodges lamented in the aftermath of an earlier shooting that the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School had “marked the end of the US control debate”. He wrote: “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
An impassioned and articulate group of teens may yet prove him wrong. Hell, even Pat Robertson, the right-wing evangelical, has been calling for stricter gun control.
But there have been false dawns before. The debate currently raging will die down. The news cycle will move elsewhere. For the efforts of those teens to effect lasting change, America’s gun-funded politicians will need to pay a price at the ballot box. That’s where things get difficult.
According to the Pew Research Centre, gun-owning households skew older, whiter and more rural. The people who tend to vote in elections, in other words. To counter them, those teens need to register to vote when they get their franchise, and then they need to use it. They need other young people at schools and at colleges to take note and do the same. But will they?
There is a reason politicians like Florida Senator Marco Rubio refused to say he would no longer accept donations from the NRA when asked the question. His calculation was that students won’t register. Or that they won’t in sufficient numbers to hurt him.
Just listen to some of the diatribes put up online by Fox News’ shrill commentator Tomi Lahren. You might find that a challenge. If you can manage more than 30 seconds without retching you’ve got a stronger stomach than I have
It’s something the right relies on, here just as much as in the US. Mercifully, we don’t have politicians in Britain who enact laws that kill kids. Our politicians just like to kill their prospects. Theresa May has paid no more than lip service to “intergenerational fairness” and kowtowed to the Brextremists in her party who draw their support from the old, bigoted and bitter, because they vote while their kids don’t.
I should stress that not all baby boomers, and not all Gen X-ers such as me, are either bigoted or bitter. But enough of them are to make men of the calibre of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson the favourites to become the next leader of the Conservative Party. Enough of them too, to deliver the White House to Donald Trump and the US Congress to the Republicans.
It is also true that not all of the young lean to the liberal, left, progressive – call it what you will – end of the spectrum. Just listen to some of the diatribes put up online by Fox News’ shrill commentator Tomi Lahren. You might find that a challenge. If you can manage more than 30 seconds without retching you’ve got a stronger stomach than I have.
We’ve Tomi Lahrens of our own over here. And what about what Ben Bradley, the 28-year-old Tory MP for Mansfield, and the Tories’ vice chair for youth? He suggested in his younger days that unemployed
people have vasectomies to stop them having children. Then there was his excitement at watching police play “splat the chav” in the 2011 London riots. He did apologise; only to go and get into a libel row over his recent tweet about Jeremy Corbyn – for which he has also now apologised.
The majority of younger people do lean liberal, however. They just don’t vote with their convictions in sufficient numbers to make the change so many of them say they want on issues such as guns (in the US), Europe (here), the economy, the environment – take your pick.
It has always been that way and – so people say – it always will be that way. Well, it always will be until it’s not. Until we try and change it.
Perhaps a meme might work as your starter for 10. On this side of the Atlantic put Rees-Moog, BoZo, Gove and May on a picture bearing the legend: “Do you want to leave your future in the hands of these people? If not, get out and vote.” In America you could put Donald Trump alongside any local congressman, senator or candidate taking NRA money and ask a question related to guns. Or just the same question I suggested for Britain. I imagine it would be similarly thought-provoking.