Letter to the Editor: School Walkout

To the Editor;

On this day March 14, 2018, students across the nation have walked out of school and headed out to make a difference due to the tragic events that occurred in Parkland, Florida, exactly one month ago hoping to change the nations gun control laws, but the laws are not what I am going to be speaking about at the moment. What I believe to be uninformed and uneducated parents everywhere are all saying the same things about these walkouts, criticizing the students who participated and stand up for the walkouts.This is a quote from an actual citizen: “These are the kids who created the Tide Pod challenge, they don’t care about these shootings.” This is a biased answer from people who stereotype all teenagers as non intelligent crowd following children who only care about themselves.Yes I admit there are some teenagers who fit into this category, but teens nowadays are becoming more involved; yes, there was a minority of kids who went to cut school or just to be with their friends,but the majority of people were mourning, respectful and actually cared about this tragedy. I may just be a “child” but I believe these gun laws are not strict enough. A SHOCKING 1.4 percent of 1.2 million legal gun purchases were denied for mental illness, to think 1680 people of one point two million people were denied for mental illness is absurd when about one in five Americans have some sort of mental illness.Every single year nearly 42.5 million Americans are born with a mental illness. It was obviously clear that Nathan Cruz was one of the 42.5 million and the first to notice where none other than the students adults believe to be idiotic and uncaring, which is not surprising to an informed student. There should be an extra background check implemented when purchasing guns long or short because a simple federal background check can not check to see suppressed illnesses or even open ones because this boy was known for being crazy and did not surprise his prior classmates when they heard he was the Parkland shooter. The issue is not being resolved or even looked upon by our president as he just takes money from the NRA and cowers upon the thought of making these laws watertight and harder for someone with behavioral illnesses to purchase these guns. Imagine how horribly worse this situation can get for example let’s say a fourteen year old in Montana has some form of a mental illness and is considering to commit genocide at their school decides to purchase a rifle (WHICH IS PERFECTLY FINE THERE) what then? With these laws presented to us now there’s nothing stopping it; after what Nikolas Cruz did they’ve practically received an invitation to follow in his footsteps. Rest in peace to the seventeen students killed on February 14, 2018.

Giovanni Benetti