GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: THIS CORNER WILL BE TURNED!

I am having difficulty typing because my eyes are filled with tears. Tears of sorrow; tears of pride.

We joined family, friends and many thousands of neighbors today in downtown Portland in the March for Our Lives. Hundreds of thousands of people all across America joined with student leaders, young people who will no longer accept the death toll from guns. These children, and I do not think of them as children, are demanding an end to the fear and killing by guns. Their rallying cries of "ENOUGH!" and "NEVER AGAIN!" reverberate in the ears of America. They do not and will not take "no" for an answer from politicians, calling "B.S." to the things that we all know to be B.S. They are angry, they are empowered, they can't understand why the "grownups" have done nothing for so long. And they are finally taking it into their own hands to make change that is so long overdue.

I have been watching some of the student speeches from the Washington, D.C. rally earlier today. I am blown away by the passion and intelligence of every one of these young people, from the 11 year olds to the 18 year olds, women and men, of every background. Their strength amazes me, their fierceness cheers me, their solidarity encourages me.

The pain these children feel and experience is also at the surface. They are survivors, of killings in their schools and in their neighborhoods. Many have stories of family and friends who were felled by bullets. The tears are there, often barely contained. One amazing young woman, a high school senior from south Los Angeles, told how she learned to duck from bullets before she learned to read, and before her brother was killed by a bullet. A young man from Chicago told of his nephew who died from a bullet, and of the number of killings by gun in his city. Teens from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida told their stories, shouted out the names of fallen friends, and demanded an end to the violence.

These kids are a force to be reckoned with, and they truly have politicians scurrying for cover. They will not accept the status quo, the business as usual in the halls of Congress, the kowtowing to the gun lobby. It's different this time, and the young people are leading the fight.

My tears of sorrow are for kids everywhere who have to go through safety drills for the very real chance that a shooter enters their school. My tears of sorrow are for kids who have to grow up in neighborhoods where gun violence is the norm, where so many have family and friends who have been killed by gun violence, where schools become security sites with armed guards. This is not OK; this is not right; this has to change. These kids know that every dollar spent on building a "big, beautiful wall" or more unneeded weapons of war, or more profits and perks for the wealthy are dollars not being spent on education, mentoring, job creation, housing, schools and health care for Americans who need these. They understand this, they are not ignorant; in fact, they understand a lot more than many adults.

My tears of pride are for these brave, wonderful, beautiful children - these amazing young people - who have started a revolution to end the gun violence in America, and beyond. This revolution is long overdue, and the "adults" in the room better join or be swept out of the way. For the times they are a'changing!

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