This morning, more than 50 student newspapers at public and private universities across the United States simultaneously published an op-ed written by the March For Our Lives chapter at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The piece, titled “We will not wait for the next school shooting,” is a nationwide demonstration of concern for the problem of gun violence on school campuses and a direct call for student leaders to pressure Congress to do something about it.
It’s a nationwide demonstration that I hope works.
MFOL is a “youth-led movement dedicated to promoting civic engagement, education and direct action by youth to eliminate the epidemic of gun violence.” It formed in 2018 after the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The founders of MFOL, many of which are Parkland survivors, aimed to never let another tragedy due to senseless gun violence happen again. They soon after organized the largest single day of protest against gun violence in history and incited a historic 47% increase in youth voter turnout at the 2018 midterm elections.
Today, MFOL has passed over 300 gun safety laws across the country. This past September, Rep. Maxwell Frost, a former national organizer for MFOL, joined President Joe Biden in announcing the establishment of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
However, increased political polarization — and two congressional chambers stacked with Republican, gun-owning representatives — has spurred an increase in pro-gun legislation, seemingly disregarding the Parkland tragedy and what MFOL stands for.
“Students are taught to love a country that values guns over our lives,” MFOL UNC leaders Andrew Sun and Alexander Denza wrote in the first line of the op-ed and, unfortunately, I have to agree.
In the past five years, there has been a sharp, appalling increase in shootings and gun-related instances of violence in schools. While the Parkland shooting was one of 119 incidents in 2018, there were 346 in 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
In seventh grade, I was warming up for a soccer game when my teammates and I found ourselves huddled around one girl’s phone. Students were frantically posting on their social media stories while Nikolas Cruz brought an AR-15 into MSD, 30 minutes from my own school.
We held a moment of silence for Alyssa Alhadeff at my next game.
Even Boston University students have been traumatized by the threat of gun violence. Last April, BU Police was one of several campus police stations to receive a string of hoax shooter calls threatening dozens of colleges across the U.S., causing BU students to fear for their lives.
All the while, we’ve been taught since kindergarten to blindly pledge allegiance to a flag, only now growing comprehensive of the choices made on our behalf every day by our elected officials.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill last April allowing gun owners to carry concealed firearms without a permit.
In November, House Republicans proposed a provision to a fiscal 2024 spending bill that loosened regulations on background checks for those looking to purchase a gun.
Even in 2022, when the Supreme Court ruled in the case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the majority Republican-appointed justices asserted “that the Second Amendment trumps reasonable efforts to protect public safety,” according to The New York Times.
It shouldn’t be the case that I’ve reluctantly accepted that some of the people running this country value the Second Amendment right to bear arms over the First Amendment freedom of speech — not to mention our inalienable right to life.
But MFOL refuses to accept that this means an end to their fight against gun violence, and their drive has extensive national reach.
The MFOL UNC op-ed was published by more than 50 student newspapers, from UNC’s Daily Tar Heel to the Tufts Daily, Yale Daily News and the Duke Chronicle.
Additionally, it was signed by 144 student leaders representing over 90 groups across the country. Maxine Slattery, Vice President of Students Demand Action at BU, was one of them.
“Our generation dares politicians to look us in the eye and tell us they’re too afraid to try,” Sun and Denza wrote.
I hope Congress listens to the powerful call from MFOL UNC to simply do their jobs and work to protect the American people, especially American students.
If Congress’ inactivity on the issue of gun violence persists, I imagine it could only be out of cowardice. Thankfully, it seems that our generation is growing strong enough to soon oust them for this indolence.
