The teenage survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, have emerged as the next leaders in the gun control debate. They are fighting for change and vowing “never again.” They’ve also been unrestrained, and at times brutally direct, in calling out hypocrisy and challenging their critics.
Parkland teens are calling out critics on social media
A backlash from gun rights advocates and conspiracy theorists hasn’t cowed these activists.
Jen Kirby is a senior foreign and national security reporter at Vox, where she covers global instability.
Criticism and conspiracy theories emerged almost as soon as the survivors of the spoke out in the wake of the tragedy. They were crisis actors; they were coached, left-wing puppets; they were just kids.
The backlash hasn’t cowed these activists. They’ve fought back, often on social media, and doubled down on their message: make the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — their high school — the last.
“They’re either misunderstanding our movement or they’re just complaining and they’re not doing anything — which, ultimately, a couple of complaints aren’t going to hurt the cause,” Delaney Tarr, a high school senior turned activist, told Vox last week. “It’s an inevitability when you are doing something this big and this controversial for so many people. Even though it shouldn’t be controversial.”
The “crisis actor” attacks
Conspiracy theories started bubbling up in the darker corners of the internet that these teenagers were “crisis actors,” people hired to perpetuate an anti-gun agenda, not student survivors. The conspiracy mongering followed the playbook of previous mass shootings, most notably the so-called Sandy Hook “truthers.”
David Hogg, a 17-year-old high school senior and one of the most vocal activists, became a particular target. The activists had some fun rebutting that attack:
But they also have called out those in power. Lauren Hogg, David’s younger sister who survived the shooting and lost friends in the attack, asked Melania Trump (who has taken on the cause of preventing cyberbullying) to stand up to those harassing her family. The attackers have found some sympathy from Donald Trump Jr., who “liked” a conspiracy-laden tweet about Hogg.
Pushing back on the NRA...
Parkland students have called out the NRA and the politicians who accept funding from the group. Starting last week, corporations began to cut ties and end discounts offered to members. The NRA tweeted it “will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world.”
The survivors responded to that and other pushback from the NRA and its members:
Other activists blasted NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s speech at CPAC, which accused “opportunists” of exploiting “tragedy for political gain.”
...and the politicians who take donations from the NRA
At a CNN town hall last week, Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student activist, challenged Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to stop taking donations from the NRA. Rubio replied that “people buy into my agenda, and I do support the Second Amendment.”
One student activist protested — and didn’t back down amid criticism:
See More:
