By Lauren Wasserman ’20 and Dana Perelberg ’20
On March 14 a walkout took place in schools all over the United States, including in Bedford Middle School. At approximately 9:45 a.m. hundreds of students filed into the hallways. They abandoned their backpacks and binders to gather in the gym in the name of gun control.
“We knew the national school walkout was happening and we wanted to make Bedford part of it so we talked to Dr. Rosen about it and we laid down a bit of plans,” Maya Markus-Malone ’22, a student speaker at the event, said.
The walkout at Bedford included speakers from every grade and the students who spoke displayed a sense of activism by sharing their views on gun violence in regards to schools.
The students of Bedford participated in this event because they realized the necessity of young people creating change and wanted to advocate for this cause.
“We may be young, but our age does not dismiss the power we have to create change,” Sasha Barnett ’22 said while reading aloud a speech written by a number of Bedford eighth graders.
This has been a common theme throughout the nation – not just in the BMS halls. According to TIME.com, students are taking stands across America because the government hasn’t initiated the change they wish to see.
“We are done hearing news about innocent civilians dying,” Barnett said. “We are done hearing about tragic events, we are done with keeping our mouths shut.”
Anonymous User • Apr 5, 2018 at 4:41 pm
The problem with modern progressives is their tendency to fetishize civil disobedience. For example, they are bound and determined for society to regard the plight of individuals suffering from same sex attraction today as similar to that of African Americans during the middle of last century. The analogy doesn”t hold, of course, but piddling concerns like logic and consistency are of no moment once the order goes forth to attack and tear down a societal norm. In 2018, the hot-button issue, once again, is gun control, meaning drastic (read: unconstitutional) restrictions on ownership and use of firearms by law-abiding private citizens. But veterans of the culture wars in this country are not distracted or lulled to sleep by the progressives” cloying use of the passive-voice term “gun violence. Guns are not violent. Violence only arises around guns when antisocial, violent people have access to them where others don”t. Regardless of what the progressives say, or how loud they howl, these socially marginalized people will almost always be deterred by a “good guy with a gun. A healthy mix of open carry and concealed carry on the part of peace-loving private citizens in public places in all U.S. states and territories is so obviously called for that continued debate is doing nothing but costing innocent human lives. And discretely arming a select few qualified teachers is the obvious answer in public schools.