Kerry's comments on the march this weekend
A Washington Post article quotes from an email that John Kerry sent the reporter.
“Every historic moment has its own power, and these young people deserve their own moment,” the former secretary of state told me in an email early this morning. “Many of them have earned the right to be heard through a shared loss that innocents should never experience. Their moral clarity defies politics or partisanship. … These young people have touched the conscience of the country about common sense on guns, and they have the power to make it a voting issue again.”
Kerry became an antiwar activist after volunteering as a Naval officer in Vietnam, an experience that profoundly shaped his worldview and service in the Senate. “They were compelled because they’d seen friends suffer and die for a policy that they thought was a mistake,” he explained, referring to the veterans who became protesters. “Because they’d served, they couldn’t be dismissed by Spiro Agnew and the Nixon White House. The same way, these young people from Parkland and all over the country can’t be written off by mere politicians. Their moral authority is unimpeachable.”
The 74-year-old also sees analogues between the March for Our Lives and the movement to protect the environment, another issue that many view in existential terms. “The environment was written off for a long time as a minor issue,” he writes. “Earth Day 1970 changed all of that when millions filled the streets of America and turned the environment into a voting issue and forced [Richard] Nixon to create the EPA.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/03/26/daily-202-how-the-marches-for-gun-control-are-like-the-protests-against-vietnam/5ab864bb30fb042a378a2e6d/?utm_term=.9adc047b9967
Earlier Kerry had responded to an Emma Gonzales tweet praising her eloquence.
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...are doing. And they come from someone with a parallel experience who really GETS their moment. I have been thinking of his words from the past about making ones issue a voting issue. That's exactly what these young people are doing. It gives me such hope for our future! I could not be prouder of them. 
I stood with students (on Saturday) here in California with similar passion. They inspired a turnout I've not seen before in my reddish part of CA. This is a very powerful moment. 👏👏👏
Thanks for posting this, karynnj. 
...supported the kids in Vermont. The march I went to had about 3-400 people...a combination of young people, older ones like us 😳 and a few families with young children. It was organized by students at the high school my oldest granddaughter will attend in a few years.
I just wish people would actually listen to each other and HEAR each other so that we could move forward with real solutions to the gun violence problem. I wish it didn't take actual experience to understand how bad things are, in schools and elsewhere. I taught in a tough neighborhood for many years and saw what can happen when young gang members have access to guns. And how they tragically fall into the hands of younger siblings.My high school in San Diego had a shooting on campus many years ago. I never thought that would happen at *my* school. 
There are so many things that could help and I believe all adults have a responsibility to take care of all our kids.
...you here again. I'm pretty rusty myself.