From The Washington Post’s video, you’d think the student-led March for Our Lives was just that; legions of students and young Americans descending into Washington D.C. to push for more gun control legislation. No doubt, these students are pushing for change. No doubt they’re angry over the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14; 17 people were killed that day. Yet, the publication also noted that the march really wasn’t a young march. It could arguably be called Women’s March 2.0, as most of the 200,000 attendees were educated women over the age of 45:
…the young faces of the advocates have created an assumption that “youth” and “students” are the core of the movement. My research tells a different story about who participated in the March for Our Lives — and it is more complicated and less well-packaged for prime time.
As part of my research on the American Resistance, I have been working with a research team to survey protesters at all the large-scale protest events in Washington since President Trump’s inauguration. By snaking through the crowd and sampling every fifth person at designated increments within the staging area, we are able to gather a field approximation of a random sample. So far, the data set includes surveys collected from 1,745 protest participants.
During the March for Our Lives, my team sampled 256 people who were randomly selected. This gives us the chance to provide evidence about who attended the March for Our Lives and why.
Like other resistance protests, and like previous gun-control marches, the March for Our Lives was mostly women. Whereas the 2017 Women’s March was 85 percent women, the March for Our Lives was 70 percent women. Further, participants were highly educated; 72 percent had a BA or higher.
Contrary to what’s been reported in many media accounts, the D.C. March for Our Lives crowd was not primarily made up of teenagers. Only about 10 percent of the participants were under 18. The average age of the adults in the crowd was just under 49 years old, which is older than participants at the other marches I’ve surveyed but similar to the age of the average participant at the Million Moms March in 2000, which was also about gun control.
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Even more interesting, the new protesters were less motivated by the issue of gun control. In fact, only 12 percent of the people who were new to protesting reported that they were motivated to join the march because of the gun-control issue, compared with 60 percent of the participants with experience protesting.
Instead, new protesters reported being motivated by the issues of peace (56 percent) and Trump (42 percent), who has been a galvanizing force for many protests.
The Post added that around 16 percent of protesters described themselves as moderate, much higher than other demonstrations since Trump’s inauguration. Still, they found that 79 percent said they were left-leaning; 89 percent had voted for Hillary Clinton.
So, as you can see, it was pretty much another Women’s March. It also helps when the Democratic Party, the Hollywood elite, the news media, and the scores of progressive organizations, who have already been pushing the March for Our Lives anti-gun initiative latch on and gather hordes of people who, whether they realize it or not, support shredding the Bill of Rights. Yes, they’re vocal, but outside the liberal hubs of New York, D.C., Chicago, and LA—it’s a different story. In fact, fewer than half of those in high school support new gun laws; they still like their guns. They’re organized and Democrats winning the 2018 elections will yank their agenda items all the more closer to reality. We cannot let that happen. I understand the political obstacles that face these anti-gunners. It’s very steep, but why even allow them to gain an inch. We have to act as if we don’t control Congress, the White House, two-thirds of the governorships, and 69/99 state legislatures. We need to have the mindset that we’re always down by a few touchdowns. Every year is an election year. Every issue is on the line. The Left is starting to get more organized and they have the money and enthusiasm to inflict a lot of pain on the Trump agenda come November. Let’s surprise them.
Oh, and before these kids actually start believing that America is a shooting gallery (it's not), do they know that gun vuolence has been on a sharp decline since 1993?
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