Analysis: When it comes to guns, the Parkland shooting survivors aren’t here to play nice

Since the shooting massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, a student there named Sarah Chadwick has amassed a Twitter following of more than 150,000 people. Fellow student Chadwick’s AR-15 zinger about Rubio drew the scorn of Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who, on her own Twitter account, called out the “sophomore” by name to flag concern over “HOW TEENS SPEAK TO AND ABT ADULTS.” Chadwick, suddenly identified for misbehavior by one of the most powerful figures in conservative media, responded drolly with three words that earned 15,000 retweets: “I’m a junior.” While the movement has inspired students at schools around the nation to perform walkouts in support of gun control, the history of 21st century activism has shown that there are upsides and downsides to organizing over social media. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen an entire community, including the survivors, have a clear call to action,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun control group. But in Parkland, “it’s as if all of them agreed immediately that stronger gun laws would prevent anyone else from going through this tragedy again,” Watts said. “Once you start looking at how easy it is to get around it, you would literally have to ban every semiautomatic rifle that’s sold in the U.S.,” Rubio said at the town hall with students and parents.