In the wake of America's most recent mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the survivors are being celebrated for their bravery and determined efforts to end the cycle of gun violence. John Oliver even praised the maturity of the kids of Parkland in the season opener of Last Week Tonight.
In his opening monologue, Oliver explained that typically, we'd have a pretty solid grasp on the sequence of events following this latest shooting, which has sadly become all too common in America.
"Thoughts and prayers. Fuck your thoughts and prayers. It's a mental health problem. Yeah, but it's also a gun problem, and then someone says, 'Now's not the time to talk about gun control' and everyone moves on until it inevitably happens again," Oliver said.
The one thing making this tragedy different, Oliver added, is that when the flippant "now's not the time" argument came out, the kids of Parkland responded with, "Yes it fucking is."
Oliver gave it up for the maturity of the high schoolers who had just experienced trauma, explaining that they are now challenging adults to have the real and necessary conversations about gun law reform now. The survivors of the Parkland shooting are organizing a national "March for Our Lives" protest in order to incite action and break the cycle of mass shootings in the U.S.
