An Open Letter to the Teenage Gun Activists Fighting the Good Fight in Florida
Dear Youth Activists, Our Best Hope for the Future.
by Sasha Stone and Ryan Adams
You already understand more about fighting the gun lobby than most adults I know. You already realize that the progress of your generation is yours to create. You already know that a government of the people and for the people must be run by the people, a sacred responsibility that many generations that came before you somehow abdicated along the way. We can see you know these things because we watch in awe as you stand up and fight for change, an inspiring demonstration of strength as young citizens on the precipice of wielding enormous power in the United States.
All across the country we marvel at your enthusiasm, cheer you on, and encourage you to do what so many of us have been unable to do: achieve change in gun laws in the United States. It goes without saying that your courage, your passion, your fury, your undaunted ambition makes many of us grownups weep. Long after some of us had given up hope, here you are — refusing to accept the lies our government keeps feeding you to keep you from expecting anything better.
Please know that good people in the world watch with dismay as detractors on the right take to Twitter to mock your tears and question your very existence as you recover from the trauma you’ve had to witness. Ignore them. Let the spectacle of their disgraceful behavior be their own damning indictment. When they perpetuate the myth that ordinary citizens need personal weapons of mass destruction that can kill dozens of innocent lives in under a minute, you outflank them with your simple common-sense questions that leave them speechless despite the legions of well-paid staff whose job is to debunk your concerns. We hear your questions and we applaud your asking them.
You know that our most basic and essential freedoms are now threatened because so many of us are afraid to go anywhere. That fear is the mentality that the gun industry wants to instill in us, since they openly admit that fear of government oppression is a major reason to amass stockpiles of weaponry — and rake in astronomical profits. But you and your fellow classmates have done the impossible this month: you stood up and said enough is enough, insisting that these weekly massacres of children are a price to high to pay for the hobby of collecting personal arsenals in millions of homes.
You have spoken out to assert a self-evident truth — that you as an American citizen have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Fear of mass shootings has threatened all three. For years we have felt helpless in this fight, but to watch you all bravely fight for your 21st century freedoms — freedom to feel safe at the movies, shop in malls, attend school, walk in the part, go to concerts and night clubs without the fear of being suddenly mowed down by a sociopath spraying hot pellets of death with an assault rifle — is the beacon of hope we needed to keep going.
This letter is to say thank you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for fighting. Thank you for refusing to accept excuses and lies that do nothing for you and only help pad the pockets of the gun lobby. You have the right to build the America you want.
We want you to know we stand with you. We grieve with you. We will march with you. I don’t have $500,000 to support your cause, so I can only give you my support, my gratitude, and my unending admiration. You have shown the courage I lost a long time ago. Perhaps I lost hope when a man who was unfit to use a can opener much less a Bushmaster AR-15 shot his mother in the face with a gun she taught him how to use, then drove down to Sandy Hook Elementary and massacred 20 children, babies. Even then, our cowardly government did nothing. Republican politicians did nothing because they wanted to show us libtard snowflakes that even a massacre of children isn’t enough to make them give an inch to protect those kids — or you.
It was our job to change this, in any way that we possibly could. Up till now we have failed. You’re here to say you mean to succeed. The most virulent gun fetishists fear you because they know you’re the future and they see you outnumber them.They’re fading, receding back in the remnants of the Civil War, back to the time when Americans fought for the right to own other human beings. The only way they can get young people to buy into their fear is to teach them to hate. That’s why your bravery is such a beacon in the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas tragedy. You’re showing us how us to love, to hope. Your fearlessness reminds us that the only way to win a battle like this is to never stop fighting for the freedom, the peace of mind, and the safety we deserve.
President Roosevelt said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. He also said, “We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership.”
What you have to fear is not fear itself. You’ve already conquered that. No, the fear is that you end up like so many of us — hopeless, weary and resigned to our fate. Never let that fate be yours.
