Kids today …
The end of that sentence is often an expression of exasperation. Or it’s the trail off after mutterings about how these kids today don’t know how good they have it, in comparison to some variation of the back-in-MY-day-I-walked-to-school-in-three-feet-of-snow-uphill-both-ways diatribe.
Kids today don’t know what going to school was like when mass murder on campus was a horrifying aberration. They don’t know a time when students practiced drills to keep them safe from tornadoes or fire, not shooters with accessorized assault weapons.
They haven’t had the luxury of not thinking about where they would hide if a gunman opened fire on campus.
Kids today have never seen Congress act reasonably or put public safety above politics.
What kids today do have is the outrage to act, and the optimism to believe it will make a difference. Kids today are saying “Enough!” and demanding action that will make schools, and the wider community, safer.
They’re working for common sense gun reforms — universal background checks for all gun sales, raising the age to legally buy a rifle from 18 to 21, keeping firearms out of the hands of people with severe mental illness.
I spoke with two leaders at Tucson High Magnet School about what they’ve done on campus in response to one of the most recent school shootings, which killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day. Hundreds of local students participated in a walkout March 14.
“I’m the generation who has grown up with school shootings our whole lives,” said Coltin Thomas, 18. “It’s always been in the back of my mind. We’ve always had lockdown drills.
“I don’t think they really did explain it when we were younger — ‘if there is somebody bad outside, we have to hide’ is the explanation we got,” he said. “Now we know. We watch the news and see exactly what we’re hiding from.”
Coltin is registered to vote, and is helping others to register, too.
Vivian Reynoso, 17, is president of the school’s Human Rights Club. She was shocked by her first school lockdown drill, as a sophomore, after she moved to Tucson from Mexico. “It was my first lockdown, and everybody was like ‘Whatever,’ and I was like ‘What is this? What’s going on?’ It really scared me.
“I think campuses are never going to be safe until we pass gun laws. We need to educate people, because the message a lot of people get, and it’s wrong, is that we’re trying to take their guns, and that’s not true,” she said.
“We want to make sure the person who is going to get their hands on a gun knows enough, and can be trusted with it.”
Tucson High Magnet School did something really smart as part of the March 14 walkout. They welcomed Catherine Tornbom and her volunteers from the Center for Community Dialogue and Training to organize and lead small group discussions. Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo attended, too.
The groups brainstormed ways of “reducing the risk of school shootings,” and identified their top two ideas to share. Themes emerged in their responses. Most included requiring background checks for all people buying firearms, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun and stopping the sale of military-style assault weapons.
Some of the other ideas from the students:
- Put pressure on state representatives to ban automatic weapons, (increase) access to school counselors for at-risk students;
- Metal detectors;
- Helping people;
- Making more friends;
- Stricter bullying policy;
- More counselors for students to talk to about personal problems;
- More security and police officers;
- Access to mental health care before a crisis happens — care that is affordable and easily accessible both in the community and at schools;
- Don’t just rely on IDs for school security but increase security personnel on school grounds;
- Parents pay close attention and check backpacks before they go to school if there are problems with the child;
- More youth support groups, and make youth more involved;
- Counseling for students at the beginning of the year and once a month by appointment;
- Have politicians go to public schools to LISTEN to those they are trying to serve.
I especially like that last point.
Kids today aren’t waiting for permission to speak up and take action. And they’re not deterred by those who try to shut them up by calling them political pawns used by anti-gun zealots. “That’s not something me or my friends spend any time on,” Coltin said. “We don’t pay attention to it because it’s so far from the truth.”
So what should we say about kids today?
Keep at it.
