The Power of Students Telling Their Stories after a Recent Florida Mass Shooting


My previous blog post was on the topic of storytelling and how we need to voice our stories to find areas to emphasize and add color, and to learn what aspects resonate with an audience. 

On the date I published that blog post there was yet another mass shooting in the U.S.A,. this time at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  Seventeen people died unnecessarily as a result of easy access to guns that can fire dozens of rounds in seconds.  

The students from the high school are now professionally and calmly demanding that their schools be safe and that changes to gun accessibility be made. On television and social media platforms students are offering clear, simple, honest stories on their experience in losing their friends in such a horrific way.  Unimaginable to me.

Those students in the media ten days after the tragedy are articulate and applying great pressure on politicians with their entrenched positions on gun ownership rights, and the positions of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA).  There has been little meaningful action to reduce access to guns capable of killing many people in seconds.  Let’s hope these high school kids with their effective description of their personal experiences, their well told stories, can influence change and thus reduce these preventable tragedies.   Perhaps they can all but eliminate these mass killings as Australia accomplished in 1996 with a ban and buyback program.


These mass killings have been tragic, and horrifying and preventable. There may come a time when it is critical for you or others around you to communicate a story clearly and simply.

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