With one down, is the March For Our Lives Jenga tower about to collapse? Cameron Kasky, one of the teens who stepped into the gun control spotlight after February’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., has cut ties with the group he helped start, and it seems he has some regrets about his conduct during some heated moments during his activism.
Kasky, a survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, got part of his 15 minutes of fame during a town hall session in Florida, when he confronted Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., over the fact that the NRA has donated to Rubio’s campaign. Well, now, it seems he regrets his approach, which he attributes in part to getting caught up in the moment and grieving for the loss of 17 of his classmates.
“But, I look back on that and I say, you know what, there were people who had just been buried and when you're looking at somebody that you find might in some way have been complicit in this murderer obtaining the weapon it's hard not to say something like that. But, I went into that wanting less conversation and more to embarrass Rubio and that was my biggest flaw,” he said during an appearance on Fox radio and was interviewed by Guy Benson and Marie Harf.
While he still thinks he would have asked Rubio some hard questions, he said he would like to have done it differently.
And guess what? He said that after meeting people who have guns—people like a gun owner who has a semi-automatic so he can protect his family; people like women who have guns because they are “pro-life” in the sense of protecting their lives—he is singing a different tune about guns.
“I learned that a lot of our issues politically come from a lack of understanding of other perspectives and also the fact that so often young conservatives and young liberals will go into debate, like I said earlier, trying to beat the other one as oppose to come to an agreement,” he said.
Although his departure from the group likely won’t mean that March For Our Lives will crumble, at least it shows that, yes, even those who appear to staunchly oppose gun rights can be swayed when a Second Amendment supporter gives him food for thought.
