To all the K-12 students in Vermont who are making your voices heard:
I want to tell you how impressed so many of us are with you.  Realizing that kids like you are the targets of many mass shootings, you have decided to act. You are asking legislators to resist attempts by the NRA and other groups to stifle discussion. You are asking them, instead, to be concerned about your safety and to pass laws that will help protect all of you and all of us.
It’s a brave stance you have taken. You have seen that some will use any means to belittle what you are doing; some will say that you are too young to understand, or that you are responding with emotion and not reason, or that you are not individuals responding out of your own concern, but are pawns of radical adults using you for their own means. It’s a sad fact that every time American citizens try to resist governmental status quo they come under attack, at times mean and bitter, from those who benefit from the way things have been.
But you have also seen that so many of us adults see you as fighting for your beliefs (and even your lives), by using your intelligence and power to express your fears of what might happen to you, anger at those in power who resist protecting you, and hopes for a safer future. We agree with and are proud of you independent thinkers.
Thank you — most of us are with you.
Gerry Loney
Middlebury