Photo by Coral Springs Talk | CC BY 2.0
The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a former student gunned down 15 children and two teachers has prompted some of the teenage survivors of the massacre to speak out. They have organized marches and contacted legislators, asking them to enact stricter gun control legislation. Lina Crisostomo, a student at Stoneman Douglas, argues that “If this keeps happening and nothing is done, none of us are safe.” Their organizing and activism have had an effect. Florida’s state legislature is considering raising the legal age to own a gun but has stopped short of banning semi-automatic weapons like those used in numerous school shootings. Jose Oliva, a Republican congressman from Miami, said, “the tremendous civic outpouring of these children” is largely responsible for newly reconsidered proposals for gun legislation.
Not everyone is happy with these developments, however. Some commentators have framed the high schoolers’ efforts as the collective result of manipulation on the part of anti-gun activists. One such pundit, Ben Shapiro, writes in the National Review that these “lumps of mental clay” have been driven to rash behavior and are essentially puppets of “the Left.” He asks, incredulously, “What, pray tell, did these students do to earn their claim to expertise?” One might answer that, unlike Shapiro, they can speak to the mental and physical effects of gun violence.
He continues his…