After the horrific Parkland school shooting in Florida, a handful of the students who attend the high school were put into the limelight to voice their opinions on the Second Amendment. Since then, a few of them have gotten very famous, accumulating hundreds of thousands of followers on twitter and appearing on CNN programs regularly. These particular students have made their stance on the Second Amendment known, which is fine. However, the backlash against people who disagree with these students is sickening.

I think that it is great that these students were given a platform to be able to voice their opinions. At the end of the day, these students are just giving their opinions, and people should be allowed to disagree without getting shamed for it. The responses that I have read online to people who disagree with the students’ opinions are disgusting. The comments include things such as them not caring about the lives that were lost, and that they are smearing the students. This isn’t the case at all. These people who disagree with the survivors are also entitled to their own opinion.

You can be pro-Second Amendment and also recognize that the school shooting was a horrible tragedy; you do not have to pick one side or the other. I think that there are valid arguments on both sides, but the mainstream media has been propping these students up to push their anti-gun agenda, which I think is wrong. The town hall meeting that CNN hosted immediately following the school shooting only had students from the school who had the same political views. For a healthy debate, they should have had students there with contrasting views.

It is obvious which students are getting attention and which are not. I think that you get into pretty dicey territory when networks pick and choose who they want to promote, when they are supposed to be reporting objectively. CNN and FOX are both equally to blame for this. The rhetoric that everyone has to agree on everything has to change, but judging by what is going on right now we are not going to end this culture war anytime soon.

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