By Madelyn Moua, Staff Photographer, & Bethany Pham, Staff Writers Photos by Bethany Pham, Vivian Le, & Madelyn Moua
Last Wednesday, FVHS students held a gathering in the bowl to commemorate those lost in the Parkland shooting. ASB president Cody Do gave a speech calling for gun reforms, which was followed by a school walkout, where students marched to the Fountain Valley Police Department (FVPD) and City Hall and back to school. However, some students met Wednesday’s events with disapproval and criticism.
“I didn’t support the walkout because you have to realize, we are at school and you can’t say anything you want without having repercussions and consequences…I think the kids who left school should also have consequences because they basically went against the law to go on this march. When you look from the public’s perspective and all they see is a bunch of screaming kids saying ‘We want change now,’ that’s a little bit demanding. Instead of walking out illegally, students should research about what they want to be changed, because what do they want to be changed?” said junior Jamie Bald.
“I did not support the walkout because I felt that most students simply took it as an opportunity to leave school rather than to stand for what the walkout stood for…I did not participate in the walkout, but I did support the gathering in the bowl for the most part. It was very organized and planned out, but the walkout itself was a very rash decision, and it could have been better if it was organized a little more. I just wished people who participated in the walkout were actually passionate about stopping gun violence,” said sophomore Alan Nguyen.
“I did not support the walkout because it wasn’t very well organized and most of the people who participated didn’t know specifically what they were walking out for and didn’t understand that it was for gun control and calling on Congress to act. Most of them were walking out to ditch class. There were definitely people who knew what they were doing and who knew what they were standing for, and that was powerful. And they managed to have some constructive expression of their beliefs but most of the people, especially since it was organized last minute, didn’t know what was happening. They were just going with the crowd,” said freshman Justin Hsieh.
“I didn’t support the rally or walkout because I believe it was an ineffective protest, and it was a waste of time. I’m totally for freedom of speech, absolutely. However, I felt that what they were advocating for wasn’t worth it, since there are already enough gun control laws in place,” said junior Lauren Gergens.
“The reason I disagree with the walkout was because it seemed that there was a prevalent mindset that led the march; I did not agree with that mindset. I have tremendous respect for the people that remembered the lives of those who died, and I appreciated the 17 minutes of remembrance we had, but beyond that, because of the mindset that the prevalent leaders had during that march, I did not want to participate. By the way, I’m not against protesting. Protest is fine. Just knowing that people that were marked truant or absent also justifies my point, seeing as how walking out is against school policy,” said junior William Tyler.
“I don’t support the big idea of it [rally and walkout] and the detail of it too. I separate my prism into four branches: the political, the metaphysical and the metaphoric and the fact. Behind the fact, for those who want to ban guns, technically guns did not increase violence for example, because nearly two-thirds of gun deaths are suicide and according to the US department of Justice and the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, one-third of gun deaths are homicide. Among those one-third percent (thirty percent), only three to eleven percent are legally obtained weapons; most of them are illegally bought from the black market or stolen. According to the University of Chicago, Duke University and I forgot one more. For England when they banned guns in 1997 to 2002, the crime rate doubled and in 2002 it declined later. For Australia, the crime rate declined at the same rate after the gun ban. For the political, I think it’s wrong to use a tragedy like the shooting as a way to push the political agenda and for both sides, the left and the right, they use fearmonger to push the agenda as well. In particular, for the left they use anyone who owns guns is dangerous and for the right, if the government would take guns away all criminals would go for you. For political, I think banning guns, not gun control, but banning guns altogether is like a secure theater. In which you feel safeter, but you don’t actually feel, not like statistically proven to be safe. And for the metaphysical, I conclude that there are three types of people during the rally: those who are lazy, those who truly care for the issue, and those who want to achieve a moral high ground. The third one, I guess you could say triggers me the most because they’re devaulizing the push for the greater good by turning a set of ideas to an ideology that needs to be pushed. Another thing is their interpretation of gun control, moral is a relative truth, it depends on the person and circumstances, like ‘is it right to kill a murderer?’ it depends which people you ask and in all interpretations of metaphysics of morality, protesting children is always moral but is it moral when you cease someone’s right to defend themselves? That kind of interpretation is similar use to abortion, it is moral to save a baby’s life but is it moral to cease a women’s right to her body? Another thing basically it’s virtuality, because I’m here and I’m protesting gun control and gun usage and therefore I am morally superior than other people are. I am for gun control just not gun banning,” said junior Long Doan.
