'We Can't Afford to Be Naive'

Whitney Bowen has been bracing for gunfire at school all her life. Thanks to a decade’s worth of mass shootings at places like Sandy Hook Elementary, Virginia Tech, and Umpqua Community College, the Northern Virginia high-school junior is a veteran of lockdowns and duck-and-cover drills. When she hears a loud noise in class, she looks for the nearest exit.

Then, on February 14, a 19-year-old armed with an AR-15 killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This time, Bowen and her classmates took more direct action, even if her legislators refused to. Within days, she and Eleanor Nuechterlein, a fellow junior at the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia, were gathering friends on Facebook to plan a President’s Day die-in in front of the White House.