{"id":5885,"date":"2018-03-27T18:00:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T22:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.khpi.org\/blog\/?p=5885"},"modified":"2018-03-28T15:11:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T19:11:26","slug":"hundreds-of-louisville-students-and-their-supporters-march-for-their-lives-and-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.khpi.org\/blog\/hundreds-of-louisville-students-and-their-supporters-march-for-their-lives-and-ours\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Louisville Students and Their Supporters March For Their Lives\u2013 and Ours."},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was a dark and stormy afternoon last Saturday when as many as a thousand or more Louisville students, their families, and supporters marched a cold wet mile up Main Street to Louisville Metro Hall where a spirited rally was held. One could only be impressed with the student’s passion and justifiable anger. (I was taken back 50 years to the protests of my generation against the Viet Nam War.) The students had a right to be angry.\u00a0 In addition to the apparently unstoppable drumbeat of shootings here and elsewhere, the day before the march a student brought a loaded gun into Louisville’s Valley High School, and a credible threat announcement was made against Manual High.\u00a0 This is not somebody else’s problem.\u00a0 We own it too!<\/p>\n

Similar protests took place all around the country. In Washington, DC, the turnout was impressive, and may have been the highest for a one-day protest ever. Despite the passion and powerful rational rhetoric of the students, pundits are generally pessimistic that little more than cosmetic changes will result in the near future\u2013 if not the foreseeable one. I suspect however, that weaknesses in the defenses of the NRA\/Industrial complex and their legislative partners are forming. Some in the Republican party and other NRA enablers of any party must be at least a little nervous. \u00a0The students know that they will soon be able to vote, and I suspect they will not have forgotten the promises they are making today.\u00a0 If you were one of their parents, why would you not support them?<\/p>\n

I believe if this generation of students can keep it up, that change is possible.\u00a0 It is already starting to happen!\u00a0 The spending bill signed by President Trump a few days ago reversed the previously unexplainable prohibition of federally sponsored research into gun violence.\u00a0 Now that such violence is a formally recognized issue of public health, I have a legitimate justification to write about it in these pages!<\/p>\n

North Oldham High School’s Zoe Kuhn was the principal student speaker at the Metro Hall rally. She delivered a powerful, articulate address in which she expressed her recurring fear, and that of her peers, that the prospect that gun violence might occur at any time in her school. There was, however, no trace of fear or lack of courage in her delivery! \u00a0I was immensely impressed and proud of her. \u00a0Her admission of fear did not ring as contrived to me, but her vulnerability did not inhibit the handful of pro-gun individuals in the crowd from attempting to shout her down in a derogatory manner. \u00a0Their camo-uniformed presence was the sole face of resistance to rational gun policy visible that day. \u00a0I suggest to other opponents of rational gun control that they not allow these counter-protestors to speak for them on this matter. Your silence can suggest that you are happy for them to do your work for you. \u00a0[I am not aware that any Republican official spoke that day, but I had to leave before the end of the rally because I was shaking too hard from hypothermia! \u00a0My endurance and commitment paled before that of the students.]<\/p>\n