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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The 2018 March for Our Lives

My daughter participated in several of the walkouts and protests on Capitol Hill. She is still inspired by it today and encourages others to protest injustices that effect students.

And for reference, the Museum of Protest cites this about those walkouts on their website:

"The movement successfully shifted national discourse around gun violence, became a significant political force in the 2018 and 2020 elections, and contributed to passage of more than 250 gun control laws at the state level, including the first significant federal gun legislation in 30 years—the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Youth voter turnout reached record levels, with young people credited as “the difference-maker in key states.”"

Keep protesting, kids!![/quote]

“Shifted the discourse” is the vaguest participation trophy phrase in modern politics. School shootings shifted the discourse … full stop. Protests and walkouts can amplify attention, absolutely, but for incredibly brief and fleeting moments. Remember, correlation isn’t causation. Just because laws passed after rallies doesn’t mean they passed because of them.[/quote]

Parkland was the straw that broke the camel’s back for high schoolers. Most couldn’t vote and were fed up with the Trump administration so they did what they could: they protested. And it started with a walkout. Many of them! And those students created March For Our Lives, which absolutely has had an impact on gun safety in America. It also has had an impact on those students who became voters.

https://marchforourlives.org/about-us/

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Yet sadly, they didn’t create enough awareness or outrage then to move the needle in the election.

Honestly this is a perfect example of confusing momentum with causation.

Yes, students protested after Parkland. That absolutely mattered emotionally and culturally. Nobody disputes that.

But the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act didn’t materialize because teenagers walked out of algebra in 2018. It passed four years later after entirely different shootings, bipartisan Senate negotiations, and heavy lobbying by multiple long-standing advocacy groups. Even supporters acknowledge protests alone don’t move Congress without institutional deal-making behind the scenes.

And the “250 laws passed” statistic? That’s pulled from the organization’s own promotional material. Laws passed since something happened are not laws passed because of it.

Correlation is not causation.

If marches automatically produced policy outcomes, every cause with a big rally would be rewriting federal law every spring.

What March for Our Lives undeniably did was energize young activists and create media attention. That’s influence.

But claiming it directly delivered federal legislation or made kids safer is a much bigger leap, especially when (incredibly tragically) school shootings and youth gun deaths remain ongoing national problems years later.
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