Classes resumed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, today, for the first time since Valentine’s Day, when former student–and increasingly apparent white supremacist–Nikolas Cruz took the lives of 17 students and educators. In a time where mass shootings are disturbingly commonplace, the survivors of the Parkland school shooting began their mourning period by declaring that they wanted to be “the last mass shooting,” and gun reform is the only path.
Here’s an Emma Gonzalez clip for everyone who hasn’t had their rage tingles yet today:
These students spent the last two weeks refusing to let their story fade to black until the next gunman storms the next school. And they’re doing a fantastic job, because their activism has hit a note that even the parents of the Sandy Hook first-graders couldn’t quite reach in 2012. To the average human, it’s impossible to ignore or dismiss traumatized children, especially when the brutality they’ve witnessed and survived is still so fresh.
Yet somehow, the Russian bots and the soulless keyboard warriors belonging to the most monstrous segment of the pro-gun population keep trying. Much like they do after every shooting—that is, if they’re not the sort to literally worship their guns.
While the accusations of the massacre being reported before it happened, and coached kids, and crisis actors, and CNN censorship have repeatedly been debunked and discarded like the utter verbal waste that they are, these children and their families continue to face death threats in response to the work they are doing.
Since this chunk of the population tends to wear red hats, it’s not such an unlikely hypothesis to think they’ll dial it back a notch if their supreme leader says so.
At least that’s what Fred Guttenberg is hoping for. Guttenberg, who is in the uniquely horrific position of being the father of both a child killed and a survivor-activist receiving death threats, publicly demanded that President Donald Trump address it. Today.
Guttenberg also called for law enforcement to take the threats seriously, and take action.
I need our President, Trump, today, to address it publicly, and demand that everyone that’s making these death threats stop; but I also am hoping … the FBI, and Broward Sheriffs, and all the other investigative agencies out there are investigating these threats and are initiating arrests.
This community has been through trauma; we cannot have additional trauma in this community. And since we know the situational aspect of this is part of it, we need to get something done, we can’t have that going on.
So far, the president has not responded to Guttenberg’s call to action.
Survivor Lauren Hogg asked the first lady to honor her vow to fight cyberbullying this weekend, and though she did offer some vaguely supportive tidings on Monday, she too has yet to respond to the 14-year-old’s plea.