“My new backpack is almost as transparent as the NRA’s agenda”
Guns don’t kill people, opaque backpacks do, apparently. Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School returned from Spring Break yesterday only to be greeted with a few new school safety measures.
Following the shooting on February 14 that left 17 dead and sparked a nationwide student-led campaign against gun violence, Florida’s Broward County school board have outlined a new list of safety protocols.
Some measures are districtwide, including ID badges and shooter training, while others apply specifically to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. As well as armed officers and barricades, one of the exclusive rules is that every student must carry a clear backpack (provided to them, so kindly, “at no cost”). And unsurprisingly, the students all immediately took to Twitter to ridicule the hell out of them.
Some posed very legitimate questions, with student Kyra Parrow tweeting: “Ok but how are clear backpacks going to protect douglas kids from an AR-15”, while others outwardly mocked the new mandatory rule: “Now I can’t pretend to look for my homework when I really don’t have it.”
Now I can’t pretend to look for my homework when I really don’t have it. pic.twitter.com/hrkSBlz6of
— giuliana. #neveragain (@giu0807) April 2, 2018
Others shared photos of how they’ve chosen to decorate their new bags, with many continuing the poignant statements from the March For Our Lives, attaching $1.05 price tags to their backpacks – reflecting how much each Florida student is worth to Republican senator Marco Rubio.
Although the new list of protocols aims to protect students and make them feel safe at school, it’s easy to understand the teens’ frustration with new measures that vilify them and make their school “seem like jail”, when legislators are doing nothing to address the gun laws that enabled a 19-year-old boy to get hold of a semi-automatic rifle in the first place.
Here’s some of the best responses to the undoubtedly pointless new backpacks:
s/o to America for making my school seem like jail now because legislators don’t have common sense gun reform on their agendas https://t.co/MJZFeaeiSa
— Kyra Parrow (@longlivekcx) March 21, 2018
My new backpack is almost as transparent as the NRA’s agenda.
— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) April 2, 2018
I feel sooo safe now.
As much as I appreciate the effort we as a country need to focus on the real issue instead of turning our schools into prisons. #clearbackpacks#MarchForOurLivespic.twitter.com/HqBIeGjzF9
This backpack is probably worth more than my life #trends#NeverAgainpic.twitter.com/sVAfRbt12R
— Carmen Lo // #NEVERAGAIN (@xo_karmin_ox) April 2, 2018
Years from now Americans will recall how our answer to mass murder with military weapons was #clearbackpacks. And they will laugh and laugh. https://t.co/AkySAeAKtm
— Michael Rene Zuzel (@MichaelRZuzel) April 2, 2018
So we got clear backpacks today. They never said we couldn’t customize them. pic.twitter.com/QMwC0pAM4v
— Sheryl (Oli) #neveragain (@tsukkiu) April 2, 2018
Watch US teen gun control activists perform their poetic call to action here.