12 MARCH 22, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
This is why they walked out
We couldn’t help but notice
the social media response
to our March 14 articles
about the National Student Walkout
in Queens.
For the most part, many readers
applauded the students’ activism, but
there were plenty of rather vocal cynics
and critics who disparaged the students;
questioned their participation;
and suggested that they didn’t even
know what the kids were protesting
about.
The next day, March 15, Forest Hills
High School was in lockdown for two
hours over a shooting threat that
turned out to be false. QNS broke the
story, and the social media response
was markedly diff erent.
There were comments of concern
and outrage that something like this
could happen here. After the lockdown
ended, there was relief that no
one was injured, and the threat turned
out to be a sick hoax.
If you’re not a high school student
now, try to imagine yourself locked
in a classroom for a couple hours with
other terrifi ed people, huddled in a
corner or under desks, away from windows
or doors, because there might
be some gunman with evil intentions
walking around the building, looking
to kill.
Think about those teachers, too, and
what must have gone through their
heads. If a gun-toting predator walked
through their doors, they would be the
fi rst ones to step between the kids and
the gunman — ready to sacrifi ce it all
to protect them.
That’s not overreaction or hyperbole.
That’s our reality now.
Mass shootings happen so oft en in
America that every school has to go
through lockdown drills to be as prepared
for a mass shooter as possible.
We’ve heard these drills compared to
the old “duck-and-cover” drills that
occurred in American schools at the
height of the Cold War, when the United
States lived under the daily threat
of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Today, however, we live under the
daily threat of one of our fellow Americans,
armed with a military-grade
assault weapon, walking into a school,
a church, a movie theater, a concert
venue or any other public place, and
mowing down scores of people at
random.
Is this any way for our nation to
live?
Is this really the kind of nation we
want for our kids? Our grandkids?
Their grandkids?
Maybe the cynics don’t mind, but
our youth has had it. They want gun
violence and the culture of fear ended.
Those are neither unreasonable
requests nor impossible goals.
That’s why they walked out of
class last week, and why they’ll hit
the streets across the country again
during the March for Our Lives on
March 24.
We adults have failed them; now
the kids are taking action demanding
that we fi nally get off our butts and do
something to stop gun violence.
It’s time for all of us to follow
their lead.
EDITORIAL
ESTABLISHED 1908
Co-Publishers
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA SCHNEPS
Editor-in-Chief
ROBERT POZARYCKI
Classifi ed Manager
DEBORAH CUSICK
Assistant Classifi ed Manager
MARLENE RUIZ
Reporter
RYAN KELLEY
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