Parkland's anti-gun students don't speak for me or my generation
by Will Riley
For the past month, Americans have been subjected to wall-to-wall cable news coverage of a well-orchestrated campaign to dismantle the Second Amendment. This campaign, organized and funded by national gun control groups, has exploited a handful of grieving teens from the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting tragedy.
As a high school senior in Carlsbad, N.M., who supports gun rights, I am disgusted by how these students and their adult handlers are trying to define my generation. My generation is not anti-Second Amendment. My generation does not agree with retired Justice John Paul Stevens that the Second Amendment should be repealed.
In fact, millennials are more pro-gun than our parents are. It’s time the media starts hearing from the millions of young Americans who respect the Constitution and recognize that the Second Amendment is fundamental to our protection and safety, as both individuals, and as a nation.
A recent Gallup poll found that 66 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they think that concealed carry guns would make the U.S. safer, 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 56 percent. A separate Pew Research Center poll found differences between millennials and the generations before them on two gun control proposals, outlawing “assault-style” weapons and banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Both Republican and Democratic millennials are more conservative on these proposals and less likely to favor them than Generation Xers, Baby Boomers, and even members of the so-called “silent generation,” those born between the mid-1920s and mid-1940s. These Parkland high school students do not speak for my generation.
I am not a hunter. I am not much of a shooter. But this issue is not only about guns. This is a battle for the very heart and soul of our country. My goal is simple. I want to spread awareness that not all of my generation shares in this shortsighted crusade to strike a grievous blow to our nation. That is why I have decided to start this movement, Stand for the Second, and began planning a student walkout paralleling the National Day of Action and March for our Lives.
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