To the editor:

I want to congratulate the throng of Saranac Lake High School students who braved the storm this morning for the National School Walkout. It was so inspiring to me, a recent retiree, to see these kids refuse to let this massacre be forgotten. They led a sobering minute of silence for each of the 17 named victims in Parkland, Florida. The kids at the front of the crowd were articulate and efficient, but were made that much more credible by the dozens of young faces and signs that backed them up. And speaking of backup, thank you to our school administration for supporting this. Not all communities were so lucky.

There were also a respectable number of community members present in support, many of whom carried signs. My own poster said, “Don’t let the NRA shoot you down!” If these students don’t persist, who will? We adults can’t seem to get anything done; maybe these young adults can, if they stick together and don’t give up.

The NRA has more money and propaganda than these young people will ever have, but they have something the NRA doesn’t. First, the actuality of having to live in fear for their lives simply by being students in a public school in America in 2018. Second, they have passion. Yes, some NRA leaders and members have passion, but not the passion that comes from seeing a classmate shot to death, the passion from hearing actual gunfire in their school, the smell of gunpowder, slipping in a friend’s blood while being ushered out of school by a SWAT team. The NRA does not have the passion of having to imagine it actually happening in their school, to their friends, to themselves, to have to actually practice shooter survival skills … in school, of all places! And of course it will happen again in someone’s school in some community that never thought it could happen to them. And somewhere in this great country there will be anger, and vigils, and protests, and marches, and nothing will change again because there aren’t enough politicians with integrity to stand up to the hyperbolic fear-mongering by the NRA. I pray that these youngsters across the nation will persevere, will hang tough even though the NRA and over-zealous supporters will do everything to discourage, obstruct, intimidate and ignore the students. Please, students, the rest of us need you to bring some sanity to our out-of-control gun culture!

John O’Neill

Saranac Lake