Don't let the bastards grind you down

The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school are in for a rough time. When they were attacked February 14, 2018 by a former student with a long history of behavioral problems and an AR-15, they could have just quietly buried their dead, gone back to school, and quietly carried on, accepting that the occasional mass shooting is the price you pay for living in One Nation Under he Gun. After all, isn't that what the rest of us did after Columbine, after Aurora, after Sandy Hook, after Pulse, after Las Vegas? Weren't we willing to grumble "somebody oughta do something," and then just shake our heads as our elected officials went right on doing nothing?

But they weren't willing to do that. They got mad. They got involved. They spoke out. They raised funds. They organized. They took elected officials to task. And this past weekend, on March 24, 2018, they held the March For Our Lives. They gathered in Washington, D.C. and at other sites across the U.S. and across the globe. They kept speaking out. They kept calling for action. This time, their words were carried live, across the country and around the world.

(When you were their age, didn't you think you could change the world? Did you ever get around to doing it?)

Along the way they've made powerful enemies. Their foremost - but by no means the only - enemy is the National Rifle Association, an organization once dedicated to gun education and gun safety, Now they seem to all about the money, and dedicated to blocking any common-sense legislation that might in any was regulate gun sales.

And so they have come under attack, from the NRA and their cronies on the "right." Conservative news outlets and social media have waged relentless attacks on the individuals leading the movement. Smear campaigns, personal attacks, doctored images - and this is just the beginning.

Long term, the goal will be to make every one of the movement leaders regret that they had ever stood up and spoken out, to make them want more than anything to go back to being the people they were the morning of February 14, 2018, to forget about the shooting and the movement, to distance themselves from it, to deny any connections to it - forever. To be silent, to keep their mouths shut and their heads down and let the status quo prevail. To accept the reality of life in One Nation Under the Gun.

Will this happen?

Only if the rest of us let it happen. They have shown such strength and courage. Now it's up to us, those of us who give a damn, to support and defend them as relentlessly (and more so) as those who are attacking them. To let them know that they are not alone. To let that their movement has not been in vain.

Visit them on Twitter to show your support:

@NeverAgainMSD ‏
@fred_guttenberg ‏

@John_Barnitt ‏

@sighnatasha ‏

@Ryan_Deitsch ‏

@lexforchange ‏

@giu0807 ‏

@davidhogg111 ‏

@Emma4Change ‏

@rain_valladares ‏

@Sarahchadwickk ‏

@longlivekcx ‏

@kali4change ‏

@ohstephany_ ‏