by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
There is another planned nationwide school walkout today, the second since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day that killed seventeen individuals, mostly high school students. A few weeks ago a brief walkout of seventeen minutes, one minute for each victim, was held in a symbolic effort to keep attention focused on the problems of America's lax gun laws. Today's walkout will be more substantive in nature with students and teachers leaving class to participate in a host of activities including programs and speeches as well as voter registration efforts,
Today is also the nineteenth anniversary of the school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, a bloodbath in which two young shooters, both from "good" families, killed thirteen of their fellow students before killing themselves. Columbine wasn't the first school shooting in America, and, indeed, it wasn't even the first school shooting in Littleton, Colorado - but the calculated way in which Dylan Kliebold and Eric Harris planned and carried out the execution of their classmates did more than just stun and horrify the world. It changed the way in which the country perceived its schools.
The killings at Columbine served as a bloody notice that the concept of education in America had undergone a fundamental change. Schools were no longer safe havens, and, as the years slipped by, school shootings became a more and more accepted fact of American life.
My oldest grandchild was born just a couple of weeks after the shooting at Columbine High School. He is now completing his first year of college. Boone experienced some exceptionally fine educational opportunities while growing up, but he was also part of a generation that was always looking over its shoulder and constantly on guard against suspicious circumstances and surprises. Something that his father's generation could not have even imagined was a deadly possibility for Boone and his classmates.
Politicians who should have been looking out for the public's welfare were instead focused on serving the desires of the gun lobby and making bigger and more deadly guns more commonplace throughout American society. There was plenty of anger over the subject of guns, but resolve was fragmented, particularly when compared to the iron will of the National Rifle Association and other gun lobbying groups. It looked as though nothing could ever stop the cycle of carnage and death.
But then Parkland happened, and a group energized youth stepped out of those bloodied hallways and classrooms and took over the national dialogue. Enough was enough - and by God things were going to change.
And change, at long last, appears to be a real possibility.
It's time now - time to register and vote - time to make our schools safe again. We can either help the kids in this noble cause, or we can get the hell out of the way and watch as they do it themselves. Change is coming - and its coming now!
Citizen Journalist
There is another planned nationwide school walkout today, the second since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day that killed seventeen individuals, mostly high school students. A few weeks ago a brief walkout of seventeen minutes, one minute for each victim, was held in a symbolic effort to keep attention focused on the problems of America's lax gun laws. Today's walkout will be more substantive in nature with students and teachers leaving class to participate in a host of activities including programs and speeches as well as voter registration efforts,
Today is also the nineteenth anniversary of the school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, a bloodbath in which two young shooters, both from "good" families, killed thirteen of their fellow students before killing themselves. Columbine wasn't the first school shooting in America, and, indeed, it wasn't even the first school shooting in Littleton, Colorado - but the calculated way in which Dylan Kliebold and Eric Harris planned and carried out the execution of their classmates did more than just stun and horrify the world. It changed the way in which the country perceived its schools.
The killings at Columbine served as a bloody notice that the concept of education in America had undergone a fundamental change. Schools were no longer safe havens, and, as the years slipped by, school shootings became a more and more accepted fact of American life.
My oldest grandchild was born just a couple of weeks after the shooting at Columbine High School. He is now completing his first year of college. Boone experienced some exceptionally fine educational opportunities while growing up, but he was also part of a generation that was always looking over its shoulder and constantly on guard against suspicious circumstances and surprises. Something that his father's generation could not have even imagined was a deadly possibility for Boone and his classmates.
Politicians who should have been looking out for the public's welfare were instead focused on serving the desires of the gun lobby and making bigger and more deadly guns more commonplace throughout American society. There was plenty of anger over the subject of guns, but resolve was fragmented, particularly when compared to the iron will of the National Rifle Association and other gun lobbying groups. It looked as though nothing could ever stop the cycle of carnage and death.
But then Parkland happened, and a group energized youth stepped out of those bloodied hallways and classrooms and took over the national dialogue. Enough was enough - and by God things were going to change.
And change, at long last, appears to be a real possibility.
It's time now - time to register and vote - time to make our schools safe again. We can either help the kids in this noble cause, or we can get the hell out of the way and watch as they do it themselves. Change is coming - and its coming now!
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