Actor and comedian Bill Murray penned an op-ed Thursday comparing the Parkland shooting survivors to the students “who helped end the Vietnam War.”
Writing for NBC News THINK, Mr. Murray drew parallels between the Parkland students and the Vietnam War student protesters who spurred the antiwar movement of the 1960s.
“I was thinking, looking at the kids in Parkland, Florida who have started these anti-gun protests, that it really was the students that began the end of the Vietnam War,” Mr. Murray wrote. “It was the students who made all the news, and that noise started, and then the movement wouldn’t stop. I think, maybe, this noise that those students in Florida are making — here, today — will do something of the same nature.
“It’s the right idea for a human to live in peace, and a peaceful nature is a proper thing,” he continued. “For children to be concerned about going to school, worried about what could happen to them at school, that makes for a horrible moment. It’s just a horrible place for us to be at.
“The thing that’s so powerful about students is that, when you haven’t had your idealism broken yet, you’re able to speak from a place that has no confusion, where there is a clear set of values,” he concluded. “But there are idealists left over the age of 18, I’m sure of it. Idealism is a voice that’s inside of you; it’s your conscience. That can really deteriorate along the way, depending on the road that you follow, and it can become almost dysfunctional, but it’s there. Everyone has it. Sometimes it’s just a whisper, but, in some people, it’s a shout.”
Mr. Murray’s piece comes ahead of the March for Our Lives protest Saturday in D.C. and in major cities across the country, where thousands of students and activists will march for stricter gun control in the wake of the Parkland high school shooting that left 17 students and teachers dead.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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