EMMA PATTERSON
Editor of the Scallion
After Trump’s historic win in the 2016 Presidential election, most Americans soon learned to expect the unexpected. What was unexpected — at least to the general public — was the mature defiance displayed by the students of Parkland who refused to accept only “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of the country’s most recent and avoidable mass killing. Most surprised, however, are the lawmakers who were previously unaware that students like Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez and Jaclyn Corin could string together a sentence, let alone organize a huge social movement.
“It’s a good thing we Baby Boomers have a handle on all this computer-y stuff, or this could really get out of hand,” one government official was filmed saying, as captured on film by high school junior Hesan Ideeot.
The government official isn’t the only lawmaker who “had no idea” today’s youth had the power and know-how to call the country out on its severely damaged moral compass.
“I mean, wow,” said another Florida lawmaker as he watched hundreds of students protesting outside his office window. “We had no idea they could form a sentence like that. Maybe we should, like . . . listen to them?” He scratched his white, prematurely balding head, and then laughed. “Naaaah,” he said.
Perhaps most shocked was Sen. Marco Rubio, who stood bewildered as Cameron Kasky and other students promptly shattered any possible argument he could have had in defense of lax gun laws.
“I stand before you today shocked, dismayed and disgusted,” he said, his head hanging in shame like a child caught pocketing money from the NRA instead of protecting the country’s children. “I’m horrified how today’s youth realized how powerful they are. They weren’t supposed to find that out for years!”
Even Donald Trump himself, the father of five children and who knows how many others, couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“So I guess . . . I hear you?” He said to a crowd of grieving students who had just watched their friends and teachers get gunned down. Shrugging his shoulders and looking confused, he said, “I don’t really know how to talk to you guys now. Uh . . . do you still like DDR?”
Some lawmakers have refused to accept that today’s kids have seen some serious shit. “Those kids are so entitled, they don’t even know how to numb themselves to a national tragedy,” another lawmaker was heard saying, as reported by student journalist Megan Usproud. “The next thing we know, they’re gonna have control of the internet, or something.”
“My generation won’t stand for this,” Cameron Kasky told CNN in an ardent appeal to lawmakers who have the power to make mass shootings less prevalent. Lawmakers responded in perhaps the most expected way of all:
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” they said. “We’d like to see you try.”