Shootings a fear that defines a generation

Poll: 1 in 3 young people plan to join marches

WASHINGTON – The threat of mass shootings is the defining fear for the generation that grew up in the shadow of Columbine, a new USA TODAY/ Ipsos Poll finds. More than one in three young people nationwide say they plan to join the March for Our Lives protests Saturday in person or via social media.

The survey of 13- to 24-year-olds — including more than 600 middle school and high school students — shows the depth of anxiety that school violence fuels and the way a movement has spread across the country in the weeks since a rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 people dead.

Tuesday, another school shooting in Great Mills, Md., left the suspected shooter dead and two other students wounded.

“I watch over my shoulder because you never know,” says Justin McDonnall, 17, a sophomore at North Central High School in Hymera, Ind., who was among those polled. Even in his small town, which he describes as being in “Nowhere, USA,” police officers spent two days at his school to deal with verbal threats of gun violence that a fellow student had made. During the marches, he said, “we’d like to be heard and not just ignored.”

Eighteen percent of the young people polled, including 21% of those 13 to 17, say they will participate personally in the marches. If they do, it would mean the most massive student-led protests in American history, dwarfing even the anti-war demonstrations of

the Vietnam era. Twenty-four percent say they will participate using social media.

“I think the protesting is ... really great because it’s showing younger kids that you need to stand up for what you believe in,” Madeline Meyers, 14, an eighth-grader at Nikolay Middle School in Cambridge, Wis., says. “If you believe that armed teachers is not the answer, if you believe that guns in school is not the answer, then you need to show that.”

The USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll included not only those 18 and older but also those 13 to 17. Parents were required to give their permission before the minors could participate.

“The March for Our Lives and #NeverAgain movements have been organized and powered by young people, but before now, we have not known how all the youth of our country feel about gun control issues,” says Cliff Young, president of the polling firm Ipsos. The survey “helps us hear their voices and understand they are tired of waiting for us to protect them.”

For the survey, 1,112 young people were interviewed online from March 14 to 20; 605 were 13 to 17 and 507 were

18 to 24. The poll has a credibility interval of +/-3.4 percentage points for the full sample, 4.5 points for the sample of those under 18, and 5 points for those

18 to 24.

There’s a debate over precisely when the Millennial generation ends and the post-Millennial generation begins. There’s no official authority; definitions evolve over time. The Pew Research Center said this month that it would define post-Millennials as those born from

1997 on, which would make them 11 to 22 years old — similar to but not the same as the respondents in this poll.

Those surveyed put gun violence/ crime at the top of the list of topics they find most worrying. The fear is more pronounced among those under 18: 53% in the younger age group cite gun violence as a major worry, compared with

32% of those in the older group. For both, the category outranked every other concern, including terrorism, racism, college affordability and climate change.

“They are tired of waiting for us to protect them.” Cliff Young Ipsos

Since these young people enrolled in elementary school, mass shootings have been a reality. The Columbine High School massacre in Colorado was in

1999, when the oldest in this group, the

24-year-olds, were 5 years old. The youngest were born six years after Columbine.

Nearly one in five, 19%, say they don’t feel safe at their school. One in four,

25%, say it’s very or somewhat likely that a classmate will bring a gun to school. Nearly one in seven, 15%, say it’s likely there will be a shooting at their school.

Eight in 10 of those under the age of 18 say their parents or guardians have had a “serious talk” with them about dealing with a gun in school. For those 18 to 24, almost four in 10 have had that talk. Both groups say by 10-1 that schools should be required to have drills to prepare students and faculty members for the possibility of a mass shooting.

“It is a pretty big experience because I usually imagine myself as if it was a real-life situation,” Cornelius Collie, 13, a seventh-grader, said of the activeshooter drills at West Tallahatchie High School in Tutwiler, Miss. “Some other kids take it as a joke, but I take it seriously because you never know what could happen. Like in Florida, I bet no one took it seriously until it happened.”

The students surveyed support steps to make their schools safer. Seven in 10 say schools should be required to have an armed police officer on site.

But the idea of training and arming teachers, a proposal backed by Presi- dent Trump, isn’t seen by most as a good idea. By 47%-29%, they oppose that.

The young people say by 7-1 that people treated for mental illness should be barred from owning a firearm. By 2-1, they support banning semiautomatic weapons such as the AR-15, which is similar to the gun used by the Parkland shooter. (Those under 18 are more likely to support banning semiautomatic weapons than those 18 and older.)

Those 18 and older say by 54%-33% that tightening gun laws and background checks would prevent mass shootings in the USA. Those under 18 were less confident about that; they say by 47%-37% that taking those steps would work.

“You can make all the gun laws you want, but there’s always going to be those people who go under the law and do illegal things, so how much are you preventing?” asks Tarena Marshall, 21, a student at the University of Southern Mississippi in Mendenhall. “You might stop a little of it but not all of it.”

In the poll, the March for Our Lives movement is viewed favorably by 40%, unfavorably by 11%, a net positive rating of 29 percentage points. Thirty percent have never heard of it. The National Rifle Association has a favorable-unfavorable rating of 30%-39%, a net negative rating of 9 points. Eight percent have never heard of it.

The marches Saturday could be historic in size. “We have had massive student-led protests in the United States before,” said David Farber, a history professor at the University of Kansas. Demonstrations in the spring of 1970 against the Vietnam War “were huge, but it seems likely that the marches planned on March 24 will be the largest studentled protests in the history of the United States, and certainly the largest inspired by high school students.”

In the poll, 18% of those 13 to 24 years old say they will participate personally in the marches. If they do, the demonstrations would draw more than 9 million young people across the country.

Julian Perez, 23, a practical nurse in Corpus Christi, Texas, suspects people will try to “spin” the student protests for their own purposes. “Some people were saying, ‘It’s great they care so much about politics,’ and as soon as they hear something they don’t like, it’s, ‘Well, you guys are just eating Tide pods; you shouldn’t be talking.’ ”