And the children shall lead

Today, for the second time this month, hundreds of thousands of young people are taking a public stand to jar the nation into action on its flaccid federal gun laws. The March for Our Lives, in Washington and across the country, comes less than six weeks after 14 students and three educators in Parkland, Fla., were mowed down by a young man with a weapon that should have no place in civil society.

Already, the youth movement to awaken a slumbering nation is making a difference. Friday, Donald Trump — the beneficiary in 2016 of $30 million in campaign spending by the National Rifle Association — signed a spending bill that actually does some good on guns.

It finally ends a destructive, two-decade blockade on federal funding for gun violence research, freeing up the Centers for Disease Control to give grants to academics who want to determine which measures are likeliest to save the most lives.

Also included: a statute tweaking the federal background check system that may finally stop dangerous people with known red flags — like the man who killed 26 people in a Texas church last year — from getting their hands on firearms.

House Republicans had cynically tried linking that basic fix to disastrous legislation eviscerating state and local gun laws. They lost. Consider it two steps in a marathon. This is a country in which it’s still perfectly legal to buy assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. In which private weapons sales are not subject to background checks, despite 97% of Americans saying there should be.

Keep marching, kids. One foot in front of the other.