February 26, 2018

How Parkland Teens Hope to Swing Votes—Starting With Their Parents

Check out the latest gun control effort from these powerful student activists.

Meghan Mccarthy/Palm Beach Post via ZUMA Wire

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Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students have been demanding change. Now, two juniors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are working to rally parents to support candidates who advocate for gun control. 

“In our movement, we wish for parents to make a promise to their children that they will vote for legislatures and politicians who will choose our children’s safety over guns!” reads the mission statement at the top of the Parents’ Promise to Kids website. Adam Buchwald and Zach Hibshman, the students behind the PPTK initiative, have asked adults to sign a contract that pledges to vote for candidates who “will act on common sense gun laws.”  

https://twitter.com/EdKrassen/status/968238879647191041

PPTK is the latest example of student-led activism in response to a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead and more than a dozen wounded on Valentine’s Day. Just days after the shooting, students rallied outside a federal courthouse to demand action against gun violence. The rally culminated in a memorable speech from Emma Gonzalez, a senior at the high school who survived the shooting. “To every politician who is taking money from the NRA: Shame on you,” she said.

Teenagers have taken to social media and written op-eds. They’ve bused to Tallahassee to meet lawmakers, including Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott, to lobby for gun control. At a recent CNN town hall, students and parents pressed Sen. Marco Rubio and other politicians, NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch, and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel on what they plan to do to address gun violence in the shooting’s aftermath. They’ve even pressured corporations who have sponsorship deals with the NRA to cut ties, resulting in the end of discount programs for NRA members at companies like Delta Airlines and Hertz rental cars. 

The Stoneman Douglas students, who have dubbed their movement, “Never Again,” have inspired similar demonstrations from students across the country. Next month, the group is taking its action to Washington, DC, for what they’ve called “March for Our Lives,” an event in which they’ve drawn financial support from the likes of George and Amal Clooney and Oprah. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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