PARKLAND, Fla. — In addition to the familiar rhetoric that followed earlier mass shootings, the Feb. 14 attack in Parkland, Fla., came with something else: young survivors immediately pleading for nationwide action.
They have led walkouts, confronted politicians, and garnered the support of celebrities.
The young survivors piled into buses and crashed a meeting of lawmakers in Tallahassee. They badgered Senator Marco Rubio of Florida about his support from the National Rifle Association. And they rejected President Trump’s condolences, calling for action over words.
To many advocates for gun control, the moment feels more profound than any since the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 first-graders and six adults were fatally shot.
Among those who think the national gun debate could have a different outcome this time is Dave Cullen, the author of ‘‘Columbine,’’ which chronicles the 1999 shooting at the Colorado high school of the same name.
‘‘The mantra just became if we couldn’t do it after Newtown, if we couldn’t do it after however many 6-year-olds were killed, it’s never going to happen,’’ Cullen said. “Then this happened, and everything changed.’’
Cullen wonders whether the pivotal difference is not the number of deaths or level of outrage that a shooting evokes, but ‘‘whether it’s the right group of people with the right standing and the right set of abilities that picks up the ball and runs with it.’’
He has been awed that the tragedy produced not just one well-spoken young student activist, but a deep bench of them.
Parkland is a well-to-do suburb, with a median household income more than twice the national average. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High is a top-tier public school under the state rating system, where most students take advanced-placement classes.
Charles Zelden, a professor of history and political science at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, said the students speaking out ‘‘come from a tradition of being heard and are angry enough right now that they won’t stand for not being heard.’’
‘‘They’re used to the idea that they’re going to make a difference, that people are going to listen to them,’’ Zelden said.
Andy Pelosi, a cochairman of the Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, has spent the past two decades fighting for gun control and watching in despair as a stream of mass murders seemed to bring little meaningful change. But he also was struck by students’ collective response.
‘‘I’d like to think this is different,’’ Pelosi said, noting that the students’ impassioned actions are helping galvanize a movement, even if they face formidable odds.
‘‘If you look at our history, the main social movements in our country have been fueled by students,’’ Pelosi said.
In matching a $500,000 donation by George and Amal Clooney to the students’ planned marches against gun violence, Oprah Winfrey compared the teens to the Freedom Riders of the 1960s, who rode buses into southern states in protest of racial segregation.
The Florida teens don’t agree on all issues, but most want AR-15s banned and the age for buying rifles in the state raised to 21, as it is for handguns. Many want all semiautomatic rifles banned. Uniformly, they want stronger background checks so people like the 19-year-old shooter, who was known to be mentally unstable and violent, cannot buy guns.
The Florida students’ message that many people are looking away as their lives are being threatened seems to be having at least some effect, with Trump, Rubio, and Governor Rick Scott all taking partial steps toward greater gun regulation.
There have been signs of the tough road ahead.
Some conservatives have portrayed the teens as pawns being exploited to take away constitutional rights, with the NRA insisting that liberals want to ban all guns. ‘‘Everything they’re doing is right out of the Democrat Party’s various playbooks,’’ Rush Limbaugh said of the students on his show Monday.
