Parkland Teens: Instead of Calling Us Saviors and Superheroes, Go Vote

It doesn’t have to be a debate about the Second Amendment.

After graduation, Parkland shooting survivors announce plans for their Road To Change tour, a multistate bus tour to "get young people educated, registered and motivated to vote."Wilfredo Lee/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Six months ago, the debate around gun safety took a sharp turn. A group of students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, mourning the recent deaths of 17 people who had been shot and killed at their school, took to the national stage and said they have had enough with all the empty posturing that followed tragic school shootings. And a rare thing happened: the intractable politics around guns showed signs of change.

Before Parkland, it was relatively safe for many Democrats to oppose gun reform, but now they—and even some Republicans—face an onslaught of criticism if they do. The decades-long efforts by many activists have gained momentum with gun safety legislation passing in several states throughout the country. Meanwhile, March for Our Lives student activists are often seen as the kids who will “save us all.”

Mother Jones caught up with several of the Parkland student leaders in New York right before they went to Newtown to finish up their Road to Change voter-registration tour of the country. In an exclusive, intimate roundtable for the Mother Jones Podcast, they talked about the pressures of those expectations and being held up as “superheroes” or “saviors.” Jaclyn Corin and Matt Deitsch, from Parkland, and Alex King, an 18-year-old activist with March for Our Lives from Chicago, tell Mother Jones about how they spent their summer vacations touring the country to fight against NRA-backed politicians and campaigning to make NRA money “toxic.”

“We did specifically target areas with low youth turnout in elections that could be taken away from these corrupt politicians,” Deitsch explains. “This is all strategic, because if the young people turn out in these states…they get to pick every single level of their government.”

March For Our Lives activists Jaclyn Corin, Matt Deitsch, and Alex King sit down for a round table discussion with Mother Jones.

Mark Helenowsk / Mother Jones

In fact, the activists point out the broad support for gun safety measures reflects the shortcomings of our political system. Some notable reforms, like requiring background checks, have occurred in Florida, Vermont, and New Jersey since the Parkland shooting last February. March for Our Lives Organizers say nationwide reform in the near future also should be feasible. “I think if we don’t have universal background checks in the next six months, our country has absolutely failed us as people.”

As they toured the country trying to register young voters, they found that America isn’t as divided on gun safety as it may appear. “It’s weird that we even talk about counter-protestors,” King tells Mother Jones, almost eight out of ten of them agree with us.” Often those who came out to demonstrate against their message were misinformed and thought this was a debate about the Second Amendment. 

Also on this week’s special episode of the podcast, we take you to the last stop on the Road to Change tour in Newtown, Connecticut, where 27 people, many of them children, were killed in a shooting rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012. Also, a father, who lost his daughter during the Parkland shooting, tells us about what it was like to confront Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during a live, televised town hall.

You can listen to these revealing conversations on the Mother Jones Podcast and subscribe using any of the following services:

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate