Led by the two self-appointed “de facto spokespeople for the youth gun control movement,” recently-graduated student anti-gunners have launched a national bus tour to push for more gun regulation, the National Review reported.
David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, whom many rights activists believe thrust themselves into the national spotlight following the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., will lead the tour. It will visit 20 states and make 70 stops, the report said.
Calling this trip the “March for Our Lives: Road to Change,” the tour will visit California, Iowa, South Carolina, Illinois (Chicago), Connecticut and Texas, according to BuzzFeed.
This comes as Hogg’s Florida home was apparently “swatted” by a prankster who called local police to report an alleged hostage situation. Such pranks are crimes, and the perpetrators can be prosecuted. A “swatting” in Kansas resulted in the death of an innocent victim, the New York Post recalled. That incident was apparently the handiwork of a California “serial prankster.” (See related report.)
Both Hogg and Gonzalez have emerged as leaders of this movement, which has received support from gun control groups. Gonzalez reportedly said in a recent interview – displaying some political savvy in the process – that, “If you don’t support this… it’ll look like you’re going against kids.”
On the other hand, it might just be that gun-owning adults don’t care to be dictated to by a bunch of teens.
The tour is supposed to span 60 days on the road, according to BuzzFeed. A different Stoneman Douglas student, Jaclyn Corin, told BuzzFeed that, “This tour is about exposing people who take money from the NRA and registering people to vote — those are the two main things we’re trying to push with this.”
But what about people who take money from the gun prohibition lobby? Do they receive a pass?
More than three months after the Parkland tragedy, National Review is reporting that the “surge of activism” following the event has apparently started to wane. In an April Gallup survey, only six percent of respondents think gun control is the most important problem facing the nation, down from 13 percent in March.
What these high schoolers may get mostly out of this trip is a lesson about the public attention span, and its fairly rapid shift of priorities based on current events. And they might also remember the story related by the late George S. Patton, perhaps someone this crop of recent graduates never heard of.
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”—Gen. George S. Patton, 1885-1945
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