When he ran for office in 2016, Congressman Brian Mast of the 18th Congressional District of Florida said America’s mass shootings “all could have been prevented were there people present who were prepared to defend themselves.” He defended the Second Amendment and has been supported by the National Rifle Association. But after 17 people were massacred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, just miles away from his district, last February, Mast called for a ban on assault weapons, improvements to the background-check system, raising the minimum age of gun purchasers, and other gun-violence prevention actions.
“And I know that my community, our schools and public gathering places are not made safer by any person having access to the best killing tool the Army could put in my hands. I cannot support the primary weapon I used to defend our people being used to kill children I swore to defend,” Mast wrote in a February 2018 New York Times opinion piece. I live in Mast’s district, and it was surprising to hear that the Republican incumbent seemed to have a change of heart in the push for gun reform.
It’s been nearly one year since Parkland high school students found themselves in the middle of a recurring American nightmare, when a gunman entered their campus on Valentine’s Day and killed 14 students and three faculty members with a semiautomatic rifle. Soon after, students organized and took action, fueling a national, youth-led gun-reform movement.
Mast was one of many politicians across the political spectrum who committed to following through with preventive action. Last year, I traveled to Washington, D.C., with Gabriel Glassman, a student and survivor of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, to meet with various political leaders before attending the March for Our Lives protest. We listened as multiple representatives addressed solutions to gun violence, and we called upon them to take steps toward change. But Democrats have failed several times to pass gun-reform legislation in Congress, and many Republicans have been inactive toward change — Mast included, until recently.
“I am very disappointed in politicians who have not followed through with their promises on gun reform,” Glassman tells Teen Vogue.
The Trump administration has had the nation distracted with, among other things, a government shutdown — the nation’s longest ever — and our country continues to prove it is unable to stay focused on a single topic for an extended time. While my friends at Stoneman Douglas prepare for a forever-tainted Valentine’s Day anniversary, political leaders seem to have moved on. For months, Congressman Mast did not appear to be much different.
“Changes have been made, but there are more changes to make across the nation,” Glassman says.
That’s why my local chapter of March for Our Lives took action into our own hands and created a “Student List of Demands,” relying primarily on Mast’s own policy suggestions from his New York Times opinion piece. We hoped that properly addressing what he had said in the past would be an effective reminder for him to get to work.
We made persistent attempts to contact his office, which, for a while, did not get a response; we even showed up in person. Teen Vogue reached out to Mast’s office for comment and has not yet received a reply. I believe Congressman Mast had, for months, made minimal effort to interact with certain members of the constituency on this issue. His campaign website boasts about the two bills he introduced to reduce gun violence (“including a 60-day prohibition on the sale of firearms similar to the AR-15 while failures by the FBI and state agencies, as well as the background check system, are examined and a long-term, comprehensive solution is negotiated”), but I don’t believe he’s been persistent in pursuing these goals. Mast has also delayed meeting with students like me and appears to have stopped speaking out against gun violence as time has passed. We deserve a representative who will listen to our concerns and follow through on his word.
Mast is not the only politician who doesn’t appear to have made a diligent effort to listen to his constituents’ pleas for gun reform. Last summer, a group of about 10 students associated with MoCo Students for Change, including 18-year-old Naomi Caplan, visited Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on Capitol Hill with a prepared list of Senate bills they wanted to bring attention to.
Caplan left Sen. McConnell’s office feeling unsatisfied and disappointed.
“It makes me feel angry, but it doesn’t shock me,” Caplan says of how she feels toward politicians who have broken their promises. “The problem is guns, and trying to pretend it’s not is selfish and ignorant.”
Parkland students, like Glassman, and so many survivors of gun violence in other schools, are working toward leading normal lives, but many are still disappointed by the lack of changes. “All we want is to know we are going to be safe,” Glassman says, “in school, in our synagogues, in our churches, in movie theaters, everywhere.”
In the meantime, Caplan and I have both committed to organizing, lobbying, and fighting, with hopes for tangible results. We are joined by so many others. We can’t control what decisions elected officials make, but we can control our reactions to those decisions and continue to pressure officials to listen to us.
“I think background checks, waiting period, and digitized [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] records are incredibly important, as well as [Extreme Risk Protection Order] laws,” Caplan says. “It’s also important for politicians to focus on less-talked-about forms of gun violence, like gang violence, suicide, and domestic abuse, as not every form of gun violence has the same solution.”
After many phone calls and voicemails, Mast’s office is finally making an effort to meet with our March for Our Lives chapter to discuss palpable solutions. I hope we can create change together, but no matter what happens, I’m prepared to continue to combat laziness and indifference with the power of my youth voice.
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Related: Emma González on Why This Generation Needs Gun Control
