13 March 2018 — 2334 mst

Parkland solidarity student walkouts

Tomorrow, 14 March, students at many high school across the nation will walk out of their classes to assemble outdoors in remembrance of the 17 students and adults murdered by Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentines Day.

In the Flathead, 17-minute-long walkouts are expected in Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Bigfork, and at Glacier and Flathead Highs in Kalispell.

At Columbia Falls, the students who walk out will split into two groups, one calling attention to the deaths at Parkland, the other also expressing support for “…responsible gun owners around the U.S. and NRA [National Rifle Association].” There probably will be more police present at Columbia Falls than at the other Flathead high schools.

At the Flathead’s and most high schools, administrators are treating the walkouts as commendable exercises in free speech, generally striking an informal deal with the students that the walkouts will be described as memorials to the dead instead of protests against lax laws on firearms. That fig leaf protects the administrators and school board members from being denounced as communist sympathizers and would-be assault weapons confiscators. But the gunpowder caucus at Columbia Falls is right: the national walkout is pro-tougher gun control laws.

Some anal retentive school districts are treating the national walkout as a call to commit treason, warning that students who leave class to assemble under the sun to stand for something they believe in strongly will be punished for defying authority. In those schools, students who exercise independent judgement and have the courage to act on their convictions are considered troublemakers, not proof that teaching young people to think for themselves has been a successful part of the curriculum. These are the schools at which students are expected and encouraged to express their patriotism by shouting "Yea, Rah! Rah!" for the home team, and leaving politics to their elders.

Will the walkouts do much to improve the odds that our state and national governments will do more to keep military style long guns out of the hands of civilians, and all firearms out of the hands of dangerous people? No. And not right away. But the walkouts are a start.

The next step is for students who will be 18 at the next election to register to vote; to work for candidates with whom they agree; and, to vote. The protest that counts most is cast at the ballot box.