The girl with the buzz cut has spoken. And she’s gunning for change. Eighteen-year-old Emma Gonzalez of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has taken the social media by storm ever since she’s raised her powerful voice against President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association amid protestors holding anti-gun banners.
“Fear has no place in our school #DouglasStrong” says one, while others urge the government to “Take action or step down,” because it needs to “Protect our kids not guns.” So, “Mr President be a man, Do the right thing,” shrieks another in dismay.
Millions have viewed the 12-minute speech by Gonzalez at an anti-gun rally in Florida and several emotional youngsters have decided to “take matters in their own hands instead of waiting for adults to bring about a change.”
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Tweeting her support, Academy award winning actress-activist Reese Witherspoon wrote: Kids like #emmagonzalez will change the world. Listen to her!
India apparently already had some of the strictest gun laws in the world making it very difficult to get a gun license. Yet on January 20, a Class XII student allegedly fired four fatal shots at his school principal, 47-year-old Ritu Chhabra with his father’s licensed revolver.
What is the genesis of all this violence? Is gun control enough? Do we need to dig deeper?
According to Time magazine, approximately 90% of children in the US play video games, and more than 90% of those games involve mature content that often includes violence.
Research has shown that “kids who played more hours of violent video games per week revealed increases in aggressive behavior and violent tendencies, compared to those who played fewer hours a week.”
Another study points out that violence in the United States has become a “public health epidemic as children are exposed to violence in their communities, in their families and in the media.” This often manifests itself in hostile behavior such as “physical, sexual and emotional abuse.”
A WHO report on youth violence says violence by young people is one of the most visible forms of violence in society today. “Homicide and non-fatal assaults involving young people contribute greatly to the global burden of premature death, injury and disability as youth violence deeply harms not only its victims, but also their families, friends and communities,” by affecting the very quality of life.
As such, violent youth are often truant, may get into “substance abuse, lie compulsively and drive recklessly.” A fact substantiated by the social media dalliances of Douglas High Shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, who has been charged on 17 counts of pre-meditated murder. Reports say he had “a string of run-ins with school authorities that ended with his expulsion,” and “there were repeated warning signs that he was mentally unstable and potentially violent. Yet he legally purchased a semi-automatic rifle.”
Similarly, the Class 12 student from Yamunanagar, who allegedly shot his principal, was warned for low attendance. “The boy was not good at studies and alleged that the principal used to punish him in front of fellow students over his poor performance and low attendance,” the police said.
So even as the government considers increasing spending on “mental health programs for schools and giving law-enforcement greater power to involuntarily hold someone considered a danger to themselves,” every conscientious citizens needs to introspect on how violence is multiplying violence, because Martin Luther King once said: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
It’s a fact that all great changes are preceded by chaos. We’ve seen enough of the chaos. Can we now hope for some change?