High Schoolers Give Lawmakers Grades No One Cares About

When March For Our Lives first started up, they pushed to get children involved in the gun control debate. They somehow figured that young people were absolutely essential for pressuring lawmakers and other adults to start doing what a handful of kids wanted.

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To be fair, in the wake of yet another mass shooting dominating the news for weeks on end, it’s not real surprising that young people started freaking out. People freaking out is really the only way for gun control to take hold, so it was kind of perfect for them.

But the bit got played a long time ago.

Now, the Utah chapter of that organization seems to think that giving lawmakers bad grades for not doing what the group wants will somehow make them change their minds.

They may still be in high school, but the March for Our Lives Utah activists gathered at the Capitol Wednesday to announce they intend to hold state lawmakers responsible for a lack of progress on gun control issues.

“We are here today because gun safety is an issue we care about. And so do our friends, families and our communities. Utah has a gun violence problem,” Skyline High School senior Ainsley Moench, 17, said. “Many of our legislators have stood by and refused to take action, and while they’ve done that, people have continued to die.”

Moench said the students “are fighting back” by grading each member of the Utah Legislature on how they dealt with firearms-related bills during the 2019 session, including failed attempts to pass universal background checks for gun buyers and a “red flag” law to allow guns to be temporarily taken away from someone deemed a danger.

“We are tired of seeing our friends die. We are tired of being scared. We are tired of being ignored,” she said, citing gun violence as one of the leading causes of death for young people. “Our age group has power, and we are not afraid to use it. We want to be safe. We want our communities to be safe. We want to live.”

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First, Sparky, I doubt you’ve seen your friends die. If you did, it had to do with criminal activity in their neighborhood that they may actually have been engaged in themselves–that’s what usually does it, after all–and nothing to do with random acts of violence like mass shootings.

Second, you’re deluding yourselves if you think a bad grade from a group these lawmakers don’t actually care about is going to do anything.

I mean, I get it. They’re high school students so grades mean a great deal, but not so much for adults.

You see, while the NRA does grades as well, they’re not really for the lawmakers. They’re for the voters who care about gun rights. It lets us judge how politicians stack up.

Which I guess someone will say is what these kids are trying to do.

In Utah.

It should be noted that Utah has allowed guns in schools for ages now and not had a single mass shooting during that entire time at any single level. Moreover, the people there seem to like the lack of gun laws in the state.

In short, no one actually cares about these grades except people who weren’t going to vote for these lawmakers in the first place. So, again, no one cares.

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But hey, give them an “A” for effort.

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