Why I Support ‘March for Our Lives’

Did you, or did you want to, “March for [y]our Lives” this weekend? Or would you rather have ignored the nationwide, student-led protests?

The March for Our Lives event on March 24 stemmed from the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman killed 17 students on February 14, 2018. Supported by political and social leaders, the survivors banded together to protest government inaction on gun control, with some of the students speaking on national news shows, visiting Congress, and being featured on the cover of Time Magazine. The #neveragain movement, as it quickly became known, spearheaded the #walkout day and now this march. But not just the one in Washington, D.C., which attracted over half a million protesters—over 800 locations in the US and internationally hosted a #MarchforourLives protest as well.

Why do I support these kids? Not necessarily because I believe in their cause, though I do. The adults in our country can do more to protect our children, and reasonable gun laws and their enforcement can only help. But my position on guns is the least of my reasons for supporting the children who have risen up to protest recent events. No, these kids have gone through great trauma. Schoolkids around the country—my own included—now practice “active shooter drills” the way I practiced tornado drills as a child. They live with the reality of potential violence in their schools. And if they want to stand up as a united group to ask “Why?” and “What are you adults doing about this?” I think they have that right. In doing so, they demonstrate to the American people three valuable qualities in our younger generation: