I walked into our Pella studio on a recent morning, and Dave, a friend and co-worker had a question for me before I even had a chance to put my computer bag down.

鈥淲hat do you think about the gun legislation they鈥檙e considering at the Statehouse?鈥� he said, or something close to that.

Like many of you probably are, I鈥檓 numbed by all of the mass shootings in America and angry that NRA-influenced Republicans haven鈥檛 allowed us to move forward on gun control measures that most Americans want. I know that Republican legislators in every state are working hard to increase Americans鈥� access to guns in more places, including schools. There have been 145 mass shootings just this year as of April 11. Gun deaths have recently exceeded violent car crashes as the  of American children from ages 1-18.

I don鈥檛 remember exactly what I said to Dave, but I probably mumbled that I don鈥檛 know much about it; why?

鈥淩epublicans want guns at schools, and they also want hunter training in schools. I don鈥檛 have guns in my home, and my kids don鈥檛 have guns in their homes, yet they want to expose my grandkids to gun culture when neither I, my wife or my kids, and their spouses want that. We don鈥檛 want anything to do with it,鈥� he said.

Or something like that. And I鈥檓 not a good enough writer to be able to describe how frustrated Dave is.

What he said and what I was thinking and said at the time are a blur, but here is some of it: Republicans are hammering our public schools, underfunding them to make sure they underperform, banning books, demanding important curriculum be cut, not letting history they don鈥檛 like being taught, making teachers do more with less, demoralizing them, driving them from the profession which will make our schools worse, making teachers out gay and trans kids even if it puts them in harm鈥檚 way, and more.

And all of this while giving public money to fund private schools with no fiscal accountability for the ultimate purpose of taking public money meant to further the public good and putting it into private hands and schools that reinforce Republican ideology. Republicans say it鈥檚 about school choice. It鈥檚 not. It鈥檚 about ideology and power. I wrote about that .

The legislation Dave was referring to is . Part of that legislation allows guns on school grounds. Like Dave and the Democrats in the Legislature, I don鈥檛 believe guns should be allowed on school grounds.

My concern here, however, is the section that encourages teaching 鈥渇irearm safety.鈥� This is what Dave and I talked most about 鈥� the introduction of kids to the gun subculture even though their parents want no part of. Let me say here I understand the role guns play in rural America. I wrote about it five years ago in the.

While the title of the relevant section of the bill is 鈥淔irearm Safety Instruction Programs in Schools,鈥� this isn鈥檛 what it鈥檚 really about. What it鈥檚 really about is the indoctrination of students into that subculture. And who is going to do that indoctrination? The NRA.

Yes, the NRA. The organization that has for generations been actively undermining all efforts to bring into law common sense gun regulations that the American people want. That NRA. The NRA that lobbies against gun registration, red flag laws, and assault weapons bans. The NRA that lobbies against needed regulations that would help prevent mass shootings in schools is now going to be in Iowa schools indoctrinating our children into their worldview should this legislation pass. The very organization that serves as a catalyst for school shootings will be in our schools from kindergarten through grade 12 before some of our kids can even read.

Seem hard to believe? The relevant section is below (I don鈥檛 see a similar section in the companion bill in the Senate, ).

It appears that these programs are to be 鈥渙ffered or made available鈥� and that schools are 鈥渆ncouraged鈥� to implement the model in kindergarten through grade 6 based on the NRA鈥檚 Eddie Eagle programming. This is insidious. Before some kids can even read, gradually and subtly, the NRA is using cartoons to teach kids an important lesson 鈥� to be safe around guns. But at the same time, they are normalizing the NRA and its policies that are an ever-present and increasing danger to public health, especially to our children. And they are doing it in the most effective way possible with this age group. With cartoons.

Look at the NRA鈥檚  Aren鈥檛 they a fun group? Is there a character your elementary school-aged kids or grandkids might identify with? They provide a lesson in a little over eight minutes. 鈥淪TOP! Don鈥檛 touch. Run away. Tell a grown-up!鈥� (I鈥檓 going to resist going down the rabbit hole of deconstructing this cartoon, although I am tempted.)

I believe kids should learn about gun safety, but it could be part of a lesson in health classes, for example. Or in a once-a-year classroom lesson or assembly (some people will say here that only the NRA offers such lessons; that鈥檚 a lame excuse).

But this legislation doesn鈥檛 call for a lesson. It calls for programs based on those offered by the NRA. Courses. Instructors. How long will these programs or courses be? What will they cost? It says the program will be developed and distributed. By who? I suspect some private company is creating that curriculum now, and it will be sold to the schools or the state, and even more taxpayer money that should have gone into our schools will be siphoned into private hands.

It sounds like the programs can also be developed locally, and the instructor doesn鈥檛 have to be a certified teacher. When taking these courses, what won鈥檛 our children be learning that they should learn instead? And do we need classes every year? Of course not, but that will deepen the indoctrination.

Maybe the NRA will offer the courses for free! Why not? After the indoctrination, these little tikes will be gun owners and NRA members in a few years. And maybe even have MAGA tattooed on their foreheads! Or Trump on a cross! Or wearing an AR-15 pin on their clothing like certain Republican members of Congress!

The bill says schools should offer hunter education courses in grades 7 through 12. That proves it isn鈥檛 about gun safety. It鈥檚 about indoctrination. You can teach gun safety in a lesson. A hunter education course is a different thing. I have nothing against hunting. It鈥檚 part of rural life.

The tragic irony is that beginning in kindergarten, this legislation will normalize the NRA and its harmful anti-gun-regulation stance in our schools, even as more and more school children are being killed in mass shootings.

And just like taking public money and putting it into private schools to promote Republican ideology, letting the NRA into our schools鈥� curriculum will do the same thing. Our kids will have been indoctrinated into gun culture, the NRA, and likely the Republican Party. This is part of their long game.

There is another irony here. The effort to bring the NRA into our schools is apparently . If so, Democrats are playing into Republican hands.

I suspect Dave and I will be talking about this part of it Monday morning.

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鈥淥ur elected officials have seen American after American drop from a bullet,鈥� said Corin, a survivor of the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, then the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior class president. As a co-founder of March For Our Lives, her advocacy in 2018 galvanized a countrywide movement that brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the National Mall to demand new firearms laws. 鈥淎nd instead of waking up to protect us, they have been hitting the snooze button. But we鈥檙e here to shake them awake.鈥� 

Yet four years after youth activists chanted 鈥渘ever again,鈥� some might argue that America is still sleepwalking through wave after wave of gun violence. The latest mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, are once again wreaking havoc on American communities and student advocates are once again preparing to hit the streets to force an end to the carnage. 

On Saturday, Corin and other advocates with the youth-led March For Our Lives, including David Hogg and X Gonzalez, will return to Washington for a second rally to press for new firearm restrictions and a slew of policy changes they believe could thwart a gun violence rate that鈥檚 . 

Their insistence that children should never again be allowed to die by gunfire in school was belied 鈥� again 鈥� by  the reality of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 children and two educators were shot and killed May 24.

鈥淔our years ago we said 鈥榥ever again,鈥� there鈥檚 never going to be another Parkland, and unfortunately that has not reigned true,鈥� Corin told 社区黑料. Since then, Corin has graduated high school and is now a rising senior at Harvard University, where she studies government and education. During those years, mass shootings have continued to grow more common, with the Uvalde assault  becoming the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. 鈥淎 large reason for that is because barely anything has been done on a national level.鈥�

Along with , organizers have planned hundreds of , all in a matter of weeks. Ahead of the event, March For Our Lives advocates are to promote their agenda. 

They hope for a different outcome this time, but acknowledge the obstacles that have blocked change in the past remain as challenging as ever. In , President Joe Biden questioned 鈥渉ow much more carnage are we willing to accept?鈥� before calling on Congress to ban assault weapons 鈥� or to at least raise the age from 18 to 21 for those looking to buy one. He also pushed for a ban on high-capacity magazines, strengthening background checks and adopting a federal 鈥渞ed flag鈥� law that would allow courts to temporarily remove weapons from people deemed an imminent threat to themselves or others. At the same time, he lamented that 鈥渁 majority of Senate Republicans don鈥檛 want any of these proposals even to be debated.鈥� 

After the Parkland shooting, the Trump administration , a device that uses the recoil of a semiautomatic gun to mimic an automatic rifle. Yet even though then-President Donald Trump embraced an effort to raise the age on rifle sales, efforts fell flat. 

Earlier this week, in negotiations with Republicans over gun proposals after the Uvalde shooting while pointing out that compromises would be crucial to progress. Instead of major firearm restrictions, a bipartisan deal could encourage states to adopt red flag laws and new funding for campus security upgrades 鈥� a reaction that for years has followed virtually every mass school shooting. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, 鈥渋t will be embarrassing鈥� if Democrats and Republicans in the Senate fail to reach a legislative response to Uvalde. 

鈥婱eanwhile, a ruling this month from the U.S. Supreme Court a decades-old New York law that puts sharp limits on who can carry guns in public. 

For Corin, having a Democrat in the White House isn鈥檛 necessarily an encouraging sign. Biden has been president for a year and a half, yet 鈥渨e haven鈥檛 seen anything done,鈥� she said. While Biden has sought to pass the issue onto Congress, Corin said her group has called on the president to appoint a gun violence prevention director, to create a task force focused on the issue and to 鈥渄eclare gun violence a national emergency 鈥� but that hasn鈥檛 happened either.鈥� 

鈥淣o one is exempt from doing work on this issue,鈥� Corin said. 鈥淚 know the executive office doesn鈥檛 have all of the power, but ultimately everyone has a role to play.鈥� 

Corin is very aware that the post-Parkland focus on gun violence had a larger impact at the state level, where . In her native Florida, for example, lawmakers passed a red flag law, raised the age to buy rifles from 18 to 21, created a three-day waiting period on gun purchases and authorized certain educators to be armed at school. In New York, lawmakers responded swiftly to the Buffalo shooting and approved a new law on Monday to strengthen gun control measures, including a red flag law that was implemented after Parkland. 

鈥淚 can only hope that the same sadness and fury that the country is feeling now, as we all did back in 2018, will fuel the continuation of these changes on the state level and ultimately 鈥� hopefully 鈥� on a national level,鈥� said Corin, who the former Marjory Stoneman student who pleaded guilty in October to opening fire on the school. 

In its policy platform, March For Our Lives blames American gun violence on a culture of 鈥済un glorification,鈥� political apathy, poverty and 鈥渁rmed supremacy鈥� in which the threat of guns are used to 鈥渞einforce power structures, hierarchies, and status.鈥� And while they recognize a national mental health crisis exists, they oppose 鈥渟capegoating鈥� those with mental illnesses as being a threat to others when they鈥檙e actually more likely than those without such disorders to .

Solutions, according to the group, include a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines and a national firearm buy-back program that could reduce the number of firearms in circulation by some 30 percent. There are an estimated 393 million guns in circulation across the U.S. 鈥� that鈥檚 more guns than people. 

But the group鈥檚 platform extends far beyond firearm policies to prevent violence and encompasses a slew of policies generally associated with Democrats. Those include ending the 鈥渨ar on drugs,鈥� combating the 鈥渟chool-to-prison pipeline,鈥� and reducing the scope of policing. 

For RuQuan Brown, a D.C. native whose stepfather was killed in a 2018 shooting, the conversation, he said, needs to 鈥渇ocus more on love than legislation.鈥� RuQuan, who is Black, said that urban gun violence has long failed to garner the same urgency as mass shootings like the ones that played out in Parkland and Uvalde despite . 

Through his work with March For Our Lives, Brown said he鈥檚 been able to help ensure that the experiences of all gun violence victims are reflected in reform efforts. 

鈥淚鈥檝e been able to work with March to make sure that when we talk about March For Our Lives, that all peoples鈥� lives are included in that,鈥� said Brown, who also attends Harvard. For him, uplifting disenfranchised communities will be the key to gun violence prevention. 鈥淭his country and its ancestors are extremely comfortable with the deaths of Black and brown people, it鈥檚 almost a part of the fabric of this country. America wouldn鈥檛 be what it is without the deaths of Black and brown people, the genocide, the rape and the forced labor.鈥�

He said it鈥檚 critical that lawmakers develop compassion for, and a commitment to help, society鈥檚 most marginalized people. If they were 鈥渃ommitted to furthering the well-being of all people,鈥� he said, 鈥淲e wouldn鈥檛 even be having this conversation about gun violence.鈥� 

With the midterm elections approaching, Corin predicted the recent mass shootings, including at the Uvalde elementary school and a Buffalo supermarket, could once again make gun violence a top issue on the campaign trail. It鈥檚 more important than ever, she said, for candidates to let people know on which side of the issue they stand. 

鈥淚f people aren鈥檛 clear on their stances and if they don鈥檛 act with courage, they鈥檙e going to be voted out,鈥� Corin said. 鈥淎nd you know what, we鈥檙e going to vote in someone that doesn鈥檛 believe that children should be shot in their seats in school.鈥�