Can this young people's crusade to stop gun violence succeed where other equally deserving campaigns failed?

'We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks....We're going to be the last mass shooting'

It would be wrong to say living in the US deadens you emotionally when a mass shooting happens. But it does leave you cynical.

There is a pattern that has become so utterly, awfully predictable. Firstly, there is the “breaking news” alert of an “active shooter incident”, followed shortly by “sources” telling local media of at least one fatality.

Within a couple of hours, a grim-faced police officer reveals the death toll has leapt, enough for the cable television channels to dedicate their coverage to nothing else. Next comes the identity of the gunman – for it is, almost always, a man – followed by details of his recent social media posts and his struggle with mental health.

There are messages of support, and, of course, prayers. Some say it is too early to talk about gun control, but for the people mourning loved ones, there is a determination this gun violence, this murderous madness that has taken grip of the country, cannot happen again.

Such words were spoken after the slaughter of 26 children and their teachers at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, in 2012. They were spoken after white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black church members in Charleston in June 2015 (“I thought we’d done with all this in the Sixties,” one elderly resident told The Independent, sitting on a bench near the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.)

It was said after the shooting in San Bernardino in 2015, after the bloodbath inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, after the mowing down of concertgoers in Las Vegas last year, and following the 27 deaths that occurred when a man opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, about 30 miles east of San Antonio, on 5 November.

In 2015, Andy Parker said he was adamant such violence would stop after his daughter, Alison, a television reporter, was shot dead live on air along with her cameraman, in Moneta, Virginia.

“I think people recognising who the victim was and what she represented and how kind and sweet and innocent she was, I think this time it’s going to be different,” he told CNN.

Despite all the effort and heartache, the determination and singlemindedness, very little has been achieved. Massachusetts has perhaps had the most success, when it passed a law banning assault weapons.

Now, following the atrocity in Parkland, Florida, it is the turn of those who survived the attack and the friends and relatives of the 17 students and staff who did not, to voice similar demands.

Empowered, social-media savvy and with a story the mainstream media has chosen to run with for successive days, the teenagers have said they want to be the last students to suffer from a mass shooting and demanded Donald Trump and other politicians act to keep them safe.

“We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. Not because we’re going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America .... We are going to be the last mass shooting,” said Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma Gonzalez.

Can these young people succeed where so many other deserving individuals have failed, or will their passionate voices be forgotten once the media moves onto the next big story?

Perhaps.

Already, they have met with politicians in Florida to discuss regulating weapons. Mr Trump has invited some of them to the White House for a “listening session”, though details remain unclear. The President has said he supports better background checks, while Florida Senator Marco Rubio who receives considerable funding from the NRA, which scores him an A+ in terms of being supportive of its policies, has said he also supports expanded background checks and a “gun-violence restraining order” to remove weapons from those accused of domestic violence.

The real problem lies in Congress. It is there that laws live or die and where commonsense legislation to make America safer, usually stalls. Polls show there is widespread public support for background checks, a waiting period on all gun purchases and a ban on magazines that carry more than 10 rounds. A recent poll by Quinnipiac University found 64 per cent of people supported banning assault-style weapons.

“The trouble is, we have a stalemate in Congress. Too many lawmakers get their funding from the NRA and they block changes that would help stop this. Instead, they tweet about praying for the families,” says Kristin Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

But Congress may not be the only way to tackle gun regulation. The recently elected New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is trying to build a coalition of likeminded governors to build a state-level coalition for greater gun regulation, similar to the one formed after Mr Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Accord on climate change. “We’ve got to die trying,” he told Politico.

And it is not just the politicians. Writing in the New York Times, journalist Andrew Sorkin pointed out the impact banks have could if they chose to.

“Here’s an idea,” he wrote. “What if the finance industry – credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?

“Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand. PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay announced years ago that they would not allow their services to be used for the sale of firearms.”

Chris Grady is one of about 100 Stoneman Douglas students heading to Tallahassee to push lawmakers to do something to stop gun violence (AP)

He added: “For example, Visa, which published a 71-page paper in 2016 espousing its ‘corporate responsibility’, could easily change its terms of service to say that it won’t do business with retailers that sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which make semiautomatic rifles fire faster.”

It was Martin Luther King who said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Yet change is not always apparent, especially when people are caught up in it.

Who would have dared imagine 12 months ago that an allegation of sexual assault levelled at Harvey Weinstein, a man whom apparently had a reputation in the movie industry – though he denies the accusations – would set in motion the firing or resignation of dozens of major figures accused of similar behaviour in fields ranging from restaurants to ballet.

And there are examples for the the US to look to: Australia has not had a fatal mass shooting since it changed its gun laws in 1996. Britain enacted similar change after a massacre that same year at the elementary school in Dunblane. Today, the UK averages around 50 to 60 gun deaths a year.

Right now, the young people of Parkland have public support as they seek to convert their anger and grief into change. On their side, they have also triggered considerable public guilt. How can it be than an entire generation of children has grown up since the killing of 15 students at Columbine High School in 1999, in an environment where lockdown drills are as much a part of going to school as the high school prom. The adults have failed them.

That point was made, with no small eloquence by Cameron Kasky, one of the Parkland students.

“You are going to be seeing students in every single major city marching and we have our lives on the line here, and at the end of the day, that is going to be what’s bringing us to victory and to making some sort of right out of this tragedy,” he told CNN. “This is about us begging for our lives.”