Where did the Parkland teens succeed where others failed?

[Tekken_Guy]

Where exactly did the Parkland teens succeed where other gun control advocates failed? What makes them different from someone like Chuck Schumer or Rachel Maddow or Jimmy Kimmel who couldn't? They're making the exact same arguments yet the students were able to move public opinion. Why?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

They were born rich and white, whereas the kids in Flint were born poor and black you see.

[Beet]

The Parkland teens haven't succeeded. They've just gotten more attention. But nothing has passed. In the end nothing will change, just like before.

[Ban my account ffs!]

They were born rich and white, whereas the kids in Flint were born poor and black you see.

I hate this dichotomy... it's not hard to see how it is created.  By ensuring that you constantly point out that the folks in Flint are poor and black, you just start separating them from yourself and reinforcing the "otherness" that people have constructed in their minds.

Immediately empathy is impossible, and only a shadow of sympathy drenched in temporary outrage remains... but is quickly forgotten as our collective "eye of Sauron" (our attention span) moves on to the next thing.

This should be framed better.  American citizens, living in a modern American city, are being poisoned due to neglect and a lack of investment in drinking water facilities.  It is unacceptable and needs to be fixed immediately, and then we can have a discussion about how and why this happened.

[ProgressiveCanadian]

They were born rich and white, whereas the kids in Flint were born poor and black you see.

Race card much?

[junior chįmp]

The Democratic Party has no credibility and a poor understanding of how to use language to sell political ideas.

The kids have no reputation so are seen as more credible and use "tell it like it is" language instead of hiding behind mean nothing platitudes

[MasterJedi]

They were born rich and white, whereas the kids in Flint were born poor and black you see.

Race card much?

Don't know if he's white or not but he's certainly poor, you'd at least think he'd empathize with ours in similar situations. But his conservative nature has taught him to hate the minorities, and not work together. Small minds easily controlled.

[SingingAnalyst]

I'll try to bring this conversation back on track.

Unlike most other such incidents, Parkland happened at a time when the President (1) is controversial; (2) enjoys the support of the NRA and most gun owners; and (3) has a 35% approval rating (23% among those younger than 30).

All these things help create the perfect storm for at least widespread demands for change.

[pbrower2a]

Juniors and seniors in high school can be very mature intellectually -- not that they all are. If they have a focus on an issue and get appropriate mentoring, they can be very good at making a point. Take a 17-year-old with an IQ around 130, and you have someone with the intellectual development typical of someone in grad school. Life, death, grief, and violence are easy to put into words.  Heck, I wrote the obituary of my late father, and the only thing that the funeral home amended was to replace 'died' with 'passed away', I dislike euphemisms except on one topic. I will not say which.

Figure that elementary school kids, as at Sandy Hook, could not do what high-school survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School could do. With the elementary school shooting, the people who did the talking were the grieving parents of their murdered children. At Sandy Hook one has largely middle-class people eminently capable of expressing themselves: student friends of the victims of the deceased, parents of the deceased, and high-school teachers.  High-school teachers have to be intellectually sharp to be able to keep up with the top students. So we have people who express themselves well.

There are clear-cut villains: a system that failed to keep a mixed-up kid from getting a weapon that he was intellectually and morally incapable of making appropriate decisions about, a firearm industry that sells a product that kills, and politicians who may owe their most recent election to support from the firearm industry. We also have a mental-health system incapable of dealing with people in the needed numbers and a flimsy safety net that misses someone like the shooter. The villains pass the blame, the weapons industry blaming the mass culture, mass culture blaming the politicians, politicians blaming the social system, figures of the social system blaming bad parental practice, and parents blaming the gun. The circular blame-casting could go in other directions, as anyone can disagree with the sequence of people in turn to receive and cast blame.   

[Fuzzy Bear]

Juniors and seniors in high school can be very mature intellectually -- not that they all are. If they have a focus on an issue and get appropriate mentoring, they can be very good at making a point. Take a 17-year-old with an IQ around 130, and you have someone with the intellectual development typical of someone in grad school. Life, death, grief, and violence are easy to put into words.  Heck, I wrote the obituary of my late father, and the only thing that the funeral home amended was to replace 'died' with 'passed away', I dislike euphemisms except on one topic. I will not say which.

Figure that elementary school kids, as at Sandy Hook, could not do what high-school survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School could do. With the elementary school shooting, the people who did the talking were the grieving parents of their murdered children. At Sandy Hook one has largely middle-class people eminently capable of expressing themselves: student friends of the victims of the deceased, parents of the deceased, and high-school teachers.  High-school teachers have to be intellectually sharp to be able to keep up with the top students. So we have people who express themselves well.

There are clear-cut villains: a system that failed to keep a mixed-up kid from getting a weapon that he was intellectually and morally incapable of making appropriate decisions about, a firearm industry that sells a product that kills, and politicians who may owe their most recent election to support from the firearm industry. We also have a mental-health system incapable of dealing with people in the needed numbers and a flimsy safety net that misses someone like the shooter. The villains pass the blame, the weapons industry blaming the mass culture, mass culture blaming the politicians, politicians blaming the social system, figures of the social system blaming bad parental practice, and parents blaming the gun. The circular blame-casting could go in other directions, as anyone can disagree with the sequence of people in turn to receive and cast blame.   

This.

I wouldn't say the Parkland kids have "succeeded", but they're an advocacy group that won't quietly fade away soon.

[Meclazine for Israel]

One of them is going to fail their math class, that is for sure.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/03/protocol-or-cowardice-parkland-student-slams-teacher-over-locked-door-during-shooting-report-says.html

[Attorney General & LGC Deputy Dwarven Dragon]

Ultimately this seems like another Sandy Hook until proven otherwise - Enough energy to force votes on gun measures in Congress, but nothing actually passes thanks to the filibuster.

[bilaps]

because trump is president

[NewYorkExpress]

They won't have succeeded until the NRA is shut down and it's leaders are arrested as accessories for the mass murders committed with these killing machines.

[pbrower2a]

Juniors and seniors in high school can be very mature intellectually -- not that they all are. If they have a focus on an issue and get appropriate mentoring, they can be very good at making a point. Take a 17-year-old with an IQ around 130, and you have someone with the intellectual development typical of someone in grad school. Life, death, grief, and violence are easy to put into words.  Heck, I wrote the obituary of my late father, and the only thing that the funeral home amended was to replace 'died' with 'passed away', I dislike euphemisms except on one topic. I will not say which.

Figure that elementary school kids, as at Sandy Hook, could not do what high-school survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School could do. With the elementary school shooting, the people who did the talking were the grieving parents of their murdered children. At Sandy Hook one has largely middle-class people eminently capable of expressing themselves: student friends of the victims of the deceased, parents of the deceased, and high-school teachers.  High-school teachers have to be intellectually sharp to be able to keep up with the top students. So we have people who express themselves well.

There are clear-cut villains: a system that failed to keep a mixed-up kid from getting a weapon that he was intellectually and morally incapable of making appropriate decisions about, a firearm industry that sells a product that kills, and politicians who may owe their most recent election to support from the firearm industry. We also have a mental-health system incapable of dealing with people in the needed numbers and a flimsy safety net that misses someone like the shooter. The villains pass the blame, the weapons industry blaming the mass culture, mass culture blaming the politicians, politicians blaming the social system, figures of the social system blaming bad parental practice, and parents blaming the gun. The circular blame-casting could go in other directions, as anyone can disagree with the sequence of people in turn to receive and cast blame.   

This.

I wouldn't say the Parkland kids have "succeeded", but they're an advocacy group that won't quietly fade away soon.

They succeeded in making their point, which is not the same as  forcing a change in public policy contrary to the promises that he majority of politicians made to the NRA.