It’s been four years since students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland learned what it was like to be stalked by a killer in a place they thought was safe. Since they learned how it felt to flee or hide as gunshots rang out; to be held for hours without knowing what was happening; to hear the names, one by one, of the people who died that day.
In the following weeks, they learned about the heroism of people such as athletic director Chris Hixon, who was shot and killed as he ran toward the sound of gunfire, and assistant football coach Aaron Feis, who died shielding two other students. They learned how 14-year-old Cara Loughran tried to save Meadow Pollack after she was shot — only to have the shooter return and murder them both. They learned how 15-year-old Peter Wang died, holding doors open so others could escape.
And their education was just beginning.
Within a few days, they learned how easy it had been for the killer to put his hands on an arsenal, despite the fact that he shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near a gun. And they wanted to know more. They were beginning to learn that their voices had the power — to demand answers, and change. But they also learned that not everyone was willing to listen to what they had to say. A week after the shooting — after meeting with survivors in the White House — President Donald Trump called the campus a “magnet” for violence because there weren’t enough guns at the school, and other national and state leaders were backing away from the suggestion that lax firearm restrictions were in any way responsible for the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, or other mass shootings.
So they had to learn again — to stand up when faced with powerful people who saw their message as inconvenient. Within a week of the shooting, a group of survivors led thousands of students to Tallahassee, where they watched lawmakers refuse to consider a ban on the high-powered, assault-style weapons that can become utterly lethal killing machines.
And even though they were already starting to be personally vilified, those students organized and rallied, leading and inspiring mass turnouts of people protesting gun violence. They spoke out on social media, and won the backing of celebrities — and faceless millions of Americans. In downtown Orlando, 35,000 people turned out to support their quest. And in less than six weeks after the shooting, a group of Parkland survivors led the March for Our Lives, and stood in front of hundreds of thousands of people on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
It was their turn to teach, and they were well up to the task. One of the most riveting moments of the Washington event came when 18-year-old survivor X Gonzalez recited the names of those who died, then stood silent for more than four minutes —- representing the time period that elapsed as the killer stalked the halls of the high school. Fellow survivor David Hogg tweeted a sharply worded query: “What if our politicians weren’t the b------ of the NRA?”
Despite the early defeat, they were able to inspire real change in Florida’s gun laws. State lawmakers approved bills that made it tougher for people with documented mental illnesses to get weapons, and raised the legal age to buy firearms. Most importantly, they instituted a three-day waiting period to buy a gun.
Memories are short in Florida politics, alas, and the shadow of the pro-gun lobby is long. Lawmakers took advantage of the Parkland tragedy to pass an NRA-pandering law allowing armed “guardians” onto school campuses. Since 2018, there’s hardly been a legislative session that passed without some erosion of Florida’s gun-safety laws.
Until this year, that is.
And it’s something of a miracle. There was one over-the-top bill, a disastrous proposal by state Rep. Anthony Sabatini that would have turned Florida into a so-called “constitutional carry” state that would allow firearms to be openly carried and displayed almost everywhere, with no need for a permit.
With just three weeks left in the annual legislative session, it seems pretty clear that Sabatini’s bill, which hasn’t been heard in a single committee, is going nowhere. (We’re still proud, however, to recognize Orange County Sheriff John Mina as the only Florida law enforcement official who took the formal step of registering to lobby against the legislation.)
Meanwhile, lawmakers are moving toward sensible revisions to the school safety legislation created in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. Lawmakers want mandatory reports of school violence, better plans to reunite students with their families in the aftermath of a mass shooting and crisis intervention education for those armed school guardians, similar to the mental health awareness training given to law enforcement officers. These measures — inspired by the chaos at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — are overdue.
We will take time to commemorate the young lives lost, and think about our obligation, as a society, to protect the vulnerable and the innocent — and how we’ve let down the survivors of gun violence, and the grieving families of those who did not survive. But we can also be glad: For one year at least — for this year — the lessons of Parkland seem to be making a difference.
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