Pro-gun rights high school students are staging a walkout of their own

Pro-gun rights high school students are walking out of schools in 42 states Wednesdsay for 16 minutes in support of Second Amendment rights.

The walkout, “Stand for the Second,” is a response to the March 14 National School Walkout that called for gun control policy measures while honoring the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Will Riley, a senior at Carlsbad High School in Carlsbad, New Mexico, launched “Stand for the Second” in an effort to speak out on behalf of young people who support gun rights.

In an op-ed he wrote for the Carlsbad Current-Argus on April 11 about the walkout, Riley responded to Parkland students who have been leading protests in favor of gun control measures:

I am disgusted by how these students and their adult handlers are trying to define my generation. My generation is not anti-Second Amendment. My generation does not agree with retired Justice John Paul Stevens that the Second Amendment should be repealed. In fact, millennials are more pro-gun than our parents are.

He added that the planned 16-minute time span for the walkout — one minute shorter than the March 14 walkout — was intentional:

Every year an estimated 1.5 million Americans use a firearm to defend themselves. During a 16 minute walkout, that breaks down to 91 American lives saved during the walkout. We want Americans to know that firearms are overwhelmingly used for good in our country.

It’s true that opinions about guns are similar across age groups, even as younger people are more left-wing in general. On the other hand, the same polling shows that among all generations, a majority believe that gun laws should be stricter.

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