Will Riley, a senior at the 1,600-student Carlsbad High School in Carlsbad, New Mexico, got upset when he saw the mainstream media fawning over the likes of David Hogg and his March for Our Lives rally. He decided to do something about it: “I’m watching the news and I see they’re saying, ‘Well, we have to do something about [school shootings]. We have to enact some sort of gun control legislation because this is what the kids are asking for.’ And I’m thinking, ‘I’m not asking for that. I look at my friends and I think, ‘They’re not asking for that.’”
So, on his own, he started “Stand for the Second” — a 16-minute walkout by students at Carlsbad to support the Second Amendment. The walkout took place today at 10 a.m. Said Riley, “I wanted to give a voice to all of the people who feel that they’re being misrepresented by the media.”
Riley was invited to express his views by the Washington Examiner, and he unloaded on the mainstream media’s attempt to apply the views of David Hogg to every student in the country. He wrote in April:
For the past month, Americans have been subjected to wall-to-wall cable news coverage of a well-orchestrated campaign to dismantle the Second Amendment. This campaign, organized and funded by national gun control groups, has exploited a handful of grieving teens from the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting tragedy.
As a high school senior in Carlsbad, N.M., who supports gun rights, I am disgusted by how these students and their adult handlers are trying to define my generation. My generation is not anti-Second Amendment. My generation does not agree with retired Justice John Paul Stevens that the Second Amendment should be repealed.
Riley claimed that his generation — the iGeneration (aka Post-Millennials) — are more pro-Second Amendment than their parents:
A recent Gallup poll found that 66 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said they think that concealed carry guns would make the U.S. safer, 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 56 percent….
These Parkland high school students do not speak for my generation….
Currently [April 12], my Stand for the Second walkout is expected to draw about a thousand students at Carlsbad High School, with a small residual effect causing similar walkouts in Artesia, Hobbs, and possibly Roswell [New Mexico]….
My generation has an obligation to define itself and not let ourselves be defined by national gun control groups. This is our opportunity to stand up for the Second Amendment and have our voices heard in this critical national debate.
Enter Mary Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots. Learning of Riley’s idea she offered her group’s resources — financial and experiential — to Riley. A website was set up and social media did the rest. Today, Wednesday, May 2, 2018, students in more than 300 schools in 40 states — from Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista, California, to Oxbow High School in Bradford, Vermont; from Port Angeles High School in Port Angeles, Washington, to Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Florida — are staging a 16-minute “Stand for the Second” walkout.
Singlehandedly, Will Riley’s “Stand for the Second” is strengthening Americans’ belief in the younger generation and reminding the mainstream media that they do not speak for the “iGeneration” when it comes to infringing on the Second Amendment.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
