Letters

Featured Letter: Failing our children

To the editor:

Adults know the best way to teach children is by example. But we adults are the ones getting schooled and it’s time we learn our lesson — because our children are paying the price for our failures.

We adults have utterly failed to protect our children from gun violence in school. Decision-makers with the power to do something have failed to lead by example. The president uses words to swear his bravery, saying he’d run into the building, even without a weapon. But the failure of the president, Congress or state leaders to stand up to NRA bullying exemplifies the opposite. The examples being set by elected officials do not demonstrate the courage and protection our children need and deserve.

Teenagers in Parkland have watched adults do nothing after witnessing the slaughter of little children in Newtown and countless other places. They’re stepping up to lead by example after surviving their own nightmare in Florida. When will we adults start acting like we are adults?

Shame on us. It is our children — survivors of the most recent example of the horrors a semi-automatic weapon will inflict — who are standing up and leading the way for us all. They want us to vote against politicians who do the NRA’s bidding instead of the electorate’s. They want us to divest our money from companies that profit from their pain and bloodshed. They want us to put in place common-sense laws that ban semi-automatic weapons in civilian, civilized society.

Let’s do what they ask of us.

The author lives in Orient.