This commentary is by Madeleine Connery, who is heading into her junior year at Champlain Valley Union High School.
A chip bag pops open during lunch, and a rare millisecond of silence is experienced. No one moves or breathes, several flinch, then all is resumed as the adrenaline dissipates.
One hundred children just mistook a bag of Doritos for an AK-47. One hundred children just said hello and goodbye to their fear of tragic death — a common misunderstanding in American public schools.
Some teens turn away from the threat, while others grab a pen and picket sign in fearless self-defense. Madeleine Ahmaudi of the Essex-Westford school district is one of the former. Maddie is a sophomore in high school and the leader of Students Demand Action VT.
Students Demand Action is a grassroots movement of young people across the country who are urging legislators to pass common-sense gun legislation and fighting for gun violence prevention.
One of their most powerful tools for doing so is education. Most recently in the Champlain Valley School District and the Essex-Westford district, an informatory email was sent out to all parents. This short and to-the-point statement covered how to safely and securely store guns, where you can get gun locks, why this is important, and other resources as well if people wish to learn more.
Though the statement was brief, the pushback was prevalent. Eva Frazier, a junior at Champlain Valley and member of Students Demand Action VT, met multiple times with the school board to back the case for this statement. “Some of the pushback we faced there was just the logistics of sending out this letter … as well as the school board accepting a pre-written letter, which I don’t think they normally do,” Eva stated.
To learn you must listen, but many adults are skeptical of kids speaking out on complex issues. Teenagers are mislabeled as naive when it comes to these heavy topics — which is frustrating when it is their safety that is jeopardized by the lack of legislative action. Maddie describes this struggle: “Oftentimes people don’t want to listen to students. They don’t trust students when talking about some heavy, really important topics. … We’ve faced that with a couple of school boards we’ve worked with.”
And that is solely from the logistical aspect — the responsive contempt from community members is a different type of obstacle. As Maddie puts it, “The biggest misconception about our group is that we are trying to take people’s guns, [which] is the furthest thing from the truth. Honestly, we fully support the Second Amendment.”
Gun violence action is quite a controversial topic. Its widespread politicization has led people to stand shortsighted in their views. These teens face enough resistance in response to their age, but what’s worse is the tunnel vision that inevitably follows all political topics. Once an issue is categorized under a political party, room for discussion and solution reaches a standstill.
Two separate echo chambers exist within our democracy, and both struggle increasingly to compromise. The goal of political discussions is no longer to seek solutions, but to claim triumph over one another.
“We have people that are not willing to hear our point of view and the things that we are fighting for; however, when people do listen and do let us explain our goals, they often agree, because everyone wants safer communities. Everyone wants to keep their family safe; that’s something we can all agree on,” Maddie recounts. Solutions need not be daunting and complex — the email sent out around school districts being a prime example. Eva recalls the response to the email in the Champlain Valley district as “mostly positive.”
“Most everyone was on board with [the letter] cause there’s nothing in there about taking away guns or having them out of the house. It’s all about how to make sure children don’t get them or people thinking of suicide,” Maddie says.
In contrast, the reaction to the letter in the Essex-Westford district wa “a mixed response,” but as Maddie puts it, “There’s always going to be positive and negative feedback. It’s obviously a controversial topic — we’re not gonna pretend it isn’t — but for us, at its core, it’s really about safety. We want to make sure we’re keeping all students safe and that we feel this is one of the best ways to do that.”
Statistics confirm that safe gun storage is lacking, even for owners with children in the home. According to one study done by Johns Hopkins University, in the U.S. only 55 percent of gun owners with children under 18 reported storing all of their guns safely.
This statistic is frightening, and the threat is even greater for Vermonters. According to a study published by the RAND Corporation, Vermont is ranked 16th in gun ownership, with an estimated 50.5% of adults possessing guns in their homes.
Gun violence prevention is an area for much improvement in our country — and the political route has certainly complicated progress. Everyone can agree that when guns are pointed, peace is absent.
It is abnormal to see mass shootings rise year after year. Children should not have to lobby for their own protective measures, yet members of Students Demand Action prove that the younger generation has a powerful voice — a voice worth listening to.
