Fighting Back with Social Media

It is Donald J. Trump who has made Twitter so much a part of the news media landscape. Now, the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland Florida are taking social media to heart. Pursuing their own political agenda with hashtags #NeverAgain and #MarchForOurLives.

Photo Courtesy of WMFE

“They did what teenagers do so well: make adults and our tolerance for an intolerable status quo look dumb and old,” says Julia Carrie Wong of the Guardian.

As more recent students of the Constitution than most, they have studied the actual wording of the Second Amendment. Created in 1791, it calls for a well-regulated militia to secure freedom; not slaughter of school children with assault weapons.  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

One particular student of Stoneman Douglas, Emma Gonzalez, has armed herself with social media to demand gun reform. In Emma’s speech after the school shooting, where 17 of her classmates were gunned down, she declared: “To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you!”

Declaration of Independence

Where were the murdered students’ “unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?” Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that these are “given to all human beings by their Creator, and which governments are created to protect.”

Shevrin Jones, member of the Florida House of Representatives tweeted, “She (Emma) has done more in 1 month than the Florida legislature has done in 20 years on #GunReform.”

Social Media Emma Gonzalez

To quote Marjory Stoneman Douglas, herself  an environmentalist, journalist and activist. “Be a nuisance when it counts. Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure. And the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics. But never, give up!”

Today’s youth is our future, and they just might be the ones brave and tenacious enough to make a change.