This past weekend I participated in the March for our Lives satellite march in Nashua.
The March for Our Lives was a student-organized march lead by students from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School to rally against gun violence. While the Stoneman Douglas students gathered in D.C. students from around the country organized their own marches.
I chose to march because I didn’t want to see myself, my fellow classmates, or any other student in the country become another victim, another statistic. I was sick of watching the same process play out as more lives are lost.
For the past decade the conversation on gun control has looked like this: a mass shooting happens, people are upset, Democrats discuss stricter gun laws, Republicans argue that guns aren’t the problem. The two sides debate without accomplishing anything. Eventually, a different topic becomes the center of attention and everyone forgets until another tragedy happens and the cycle repeats.
The failure of politics to set their differences aside and find a solution to gun violence has sucked the United states into a vortex of chaos. It’s members of our generation, the children, who are falling victim to the storm.
No, more. For members of our generation “enough is enough”.
Students from Nashua High School North and Nashua High School South, passed out signs to anyone who didn’t bring their own, led the march from the front of Elm Street Middle School to the rally Nashua town hall, and were the primary voices throughout the rally despite Senators Jean Shaheen and Maggie Hassan being present.
The speeches made by Maggie Hassen, Jean Shaheen, and the Nashua students all shared a common theme. Getting out to vote. This was the international message being spread by all the marches across the country. The only way to strengthen background checks or to ban assault weapons is to vote out NRA-supporting politicians in the November elections.
Voting is the most important thing we can do as citizens in this situation. Politicians only have power because we give it to them. When we take away their power, they can do nothing.
I hear kids talk about getting tattoos, piercing, or buying lottery tickets to commemorate their eighteenth birthday but I encourage anyone turning eighteen before the November election to also register to vote.
Those of you who are younger students and won’t be able to vote for a few more years, the best thing you can do is to open the conversation on gun control to your parents and other adults in your life. Speak to them about your concerns for your future. Also, don’t forget what is going on right now.. When you finally turn eighteen and can register, look back on the events that took place in 2018 and remember why voting is important.
For those of you are who against gun control and don’t support what the March for Our Lives stands for, it is equally as crucial for you to get your voices heard as well and I encourage you to also register to vote when you can.
The whole reason we were sucked into the vortex in the first place was because we were unable to compromise with each other. The only way we will be able to pull ourselves out of the vortex is by no longer seeing things as black and white and throw out the all-or-nothing mentality that has decimated so much of our politics nowadays.
It is only through working together and compromising that we will create a safer America.
