In the weeks following the horrific Parkland, Florida school shooting, the country was enamored by surviving students who the news called “eloquent” and “bold” in their public campaign for gun control. In no time at all, these students had organized major events from a nationwide school walkout to a march on Washington, D.C. They also managed to pull in a million dollars in donations (from mega donors) in just a matter of days.
So how exactly could a few highschool students rise to such influence and organizational skills? The media attributed it to their tech savvy or the hotness of the issue. But not until weeks later did it come to light that this high school movement wasn’t so spontaneous or grassroots at all. It turns out that Debbie Wassermann Schultz jumped in to aid students in lobbying the Florida capital. A teacher’s union organized the buses that got the kids to Tallahassee. Michael Bloomberg’s groups and the Women’s March came to help organize a national march, and MoveOn.org is working social media promotion and even march logistics. The American Federation of Teachers admitted they were behind the national school walkout, which journalists had previously assured us was the work of one teenager. And the icing on the cake of all this news is that activist training for the students in the days following the shooting was provided by none other than Planned Parenthood.
In other words, the response to this shooting was professional and political. Make no mistake, this effective movement is not the work of kids forming a grassroots organization in someone’s living room. This new push for gun control is the work of high dollar liberal activists who are using these surviving students and families as pawns to achieve political gains. It’s not about saving lives or saving freedoms for these progressives. It’s about power and control.
Forensic science writer David Hines summed it up well when he said, “For two weeks, journalists treated power as if it were magical. It’s not. It’s mechanical. The people organizing the response to Parkland, and a host of other causes, know that. So should you.”
