Dear Those Who Walked Out

It’s been two weeks, so what else have you done?

I don’t pay enough attention to politics to have formed an opinion. I’m willing to admit that unlike a lot of people. I don’t understand anything about guns, so I don’t have an opinion. I have no bias because I couldn’t care less what the gun laws are.

At first, I found it great that teenagers were trying to support what they believe by walking out. I thought that it would be the start of teenagers doing something, and I was right, but, it was also the end of teenagers doing something at the same time.

Let’s talk about the people who did the walkout, there were a few types.

Type 1: I want to get out of class, so, sign me the fuck up!

That’s not everyone, but, let’s be honest, some people only walked out because they wanted to get out of class. There’s no stopping that, some people are just that, for lack of a real word, dickish.\

Type 2: Everyone else is doing this, I’m not really sure why, but, let’s do it!

I’d say a lot of people were like this. Participating in the walkout basically became a trend, it’s sad but true.

Type 3: I don’t know anything about gun control, but, I’ll act like I do, and what this walkout represents seems like it makes sense, I mean, sure I can’t argue that point if I tried, but, whatever.

I’d say this is the most common type of person who did the walkout. I’m a teenager so I’m not going to go and say that none of us know what we’re talking about, but, a lot of us really don’t. A lot of people do absolutely no research but they see something trending on Twitter and they decide that they agree with it, even though they don’t know what they agree with.

Type 4: I know why I’m doing this. I believe in what this represents. I’m going to make a difference. I know how to argue my point.

Pretty rare, but, still, these people exist.

But then, there’s the rarest type of them all.

Type 5: I believed in this before Parkland, I’m happy other people are starting to try to make a difference too. I understand that we need to do more than just walkout, we can’t just do this and expect it to make a change, we have to continue to protest, this isn’t enough.

Seriously, ever since the walkout happened, we’ve stopped seeing teens who aren’t from Parkland still protesting. Everybody seems to think that standing there for 17 minutes will make a difference, but, honestly, it’s not going to. If you truly believe in stricter gun laws, or anything actually, then you have to do more than that.

Parkland was tragic, we can all agree on that. What happened was horrible. I understand that the 17 minutes are to represent the 17 deaths, but, there needs to be more. There needs to be more than just a day of protest, there needs to be a lot more than that to make a difference.

So, if you truly believe in what the walkout represented, then do more. Do research, be able to argue your point.

That goes for people who don’t believe in it too, do more.

Whatever the hell you believe in, fight for it, and keep fighting for it. It’s easy for someone to forget a tragedy when there are so many other tragedies occurring constantly.