Republican just attacked Florida students for smiling in photo. Survivor’s comeback is epic

Today, in a characteristically vile display of inhumanity, conservative actor James Woods took a moment away from hitting on teenage girls and promoting far-right conspiracy theories to attack grieving children for engaging in a rare moment of levity.

Emma Gonzalez, who now has more Twitter followers than the NRA and its spokeswoman Dana Loesch, offered up a response that demonstrated infinitely more soul and class than Woods’ petty tweet.

Since the Parkland massacre took 14 of their peers and three of their teachers less than two weeks ago, the brave Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School students have used their grief and rage to ignite a national #NeverAgain movement to pressure Republican politicians to defy their NRA overlords and pass sensible gun laws.

In a fleeting moment of happiness, three of the survivors, Gonzalez and her friends Cameron Kasky (who wowed America with his eloquent remarks to Anderson Cooper), and Jaclyn Corin (another vocal activist), posted a picture of themselves laughing.  Even through their playfulness, Cameron’s face betrayed emotional distress.

Woods’ attack comes as just one in an incessant onslaught of right-wing attacks on the young survivors for holding Republicans and the NRA to account for their role in the epidemic of U.S. mass shootings that far outnumber those occurring in any other wealthy nation.

Some conservatives have even called the youngsters “crisis actors,” insinuating that they are paid spokespeople, rather than the traumatized survivors of a national tragedy.

Fortunately, the Parkland teens understand their larger mission.  They stay focused on saving other kids from the gun massacres that have terrorized America since the Columbine shooting in 1999.

They have galvanized national support for the March for our Lives in Washington D.C. and satellite cities around the country on March 24 and they have pressured many NRA-linked brands into backing out of their deals with the gun lobby.

To join or donate to the March for our Lives, click here.

Follow Lucia Brawley on Twitter and at luciabrawley.com. 

Lucia Brawley

Lucia Brawley is a Harvard- and Yale-educated writer, producer, actor, and political organizer. She runs the progressive political Facebook group Consenting to Lead. To learn more, please go to luciabrawley.com. Follow her on Twitter: @luciabrawley