A vigil memorializing the 26 lives taken in Newtown, Connecticut, is held outside of the NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, on the 14th day of every month. This one, on April 14, 2018, was different: only the kids – from Parkland, from Newtown, from Gaithersburg, from Alexandria (elementary school students!) – spoke. No other words were needed.
From Maryland youth:
- “The NRA has blood on its hands. The NRA doesn’t care about its members, only money. The NRA is not a civil rights organization. It is an industrial lobbying organization.”
- “The NRA is a bully. They trade in fear. They bribe. They make us afraid at school, at movies, in church, on the streets.”
- “When my children read about this they will ask ‘Why didn’t your parents do something…?’”
From Newtown, CT, youth:
- “I have not been to school on the 14th of any month for four years. On that day we gather as a family. We don’t go to school. My parents don’t go to work. We will never, ever forget. We cry. I was in fourth grade. One girl will never have a piggy back ride. One girl who loved to dig in the dirt for bugs will never dig again. I can’t drink, smoke or vote but I can buy an AK-15.”
- “Vote them out.”
- “We give our blood and pierced skin. Not statistics. The NRA manufactures fear – white against black, Americans against Americans, us against them.”
From elementary school students from Alexandria, VA:
- “We need teachers, not guards.”
- “We need to learn math, not how to duck.”
- “We have to do these drills. They scare us. I want the lobbyists to do the drills. I want them to feel the same fear we feel every day.”
- “Every single day in every class I think about how to escape – through a door? Through a window? Hide in a closet? I am scared every day to go to school.”
From Parkland, FL:
- “We come here expressing our deepest moral values, and we stand here right next to the NRA, here in the shadow of greed and fear. Your guns deny me the right to live in peace. When the shooting occurred, I was studying holocaust history.”
I think I got most of the words, but tears blurred some of my writing. I can’t help but wonder, will the empathy we feel – en pathos – “suffering with” – move us to action at last?
Written by Jack Calhoun
Mr. Calhoun is an internationally renowned public speaker and frequent media guest, editorial contributor and author of three books. He is the founder and CEO of Hope Matters. For more than 20 years, Mr. Calhoun was the founding president of the National Crime Prevention Council, prior to which he served under President Carter as the Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families.
Click on “Contact” to book Mr. Calhoun to speak at your next conference. All speaking topics are available at: www.HopeMatters.org/Speaker
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