Adults are supposed to take care of children — not only keep them safe, but make them feel safe. Schools are essentially an extension of the home, in that sense, providing sanctuaries of learning, of nurturing and care. But after years of attacks by people with weapons of war, students cannot feel safe and are demanding that adults end years of complaisance and act. They are not asking for their schools to become armed garrisons. Rather, they want those weapons to be brought under control. And unlike too many adults, the young people leading Wednesday’s walkout at schools around the country — inspired by angry, motivated students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed by a former student with an assault weapon — have had the courage to take on the industry responsible for blocking every reasonable measure to limit access to guns, including those that make it all too easy to commit mass murder.

As Stoneman Douglas junior Florence Yared said in front of the Florida State Capitol late last month, “You adults have failed us by not creating a safer place for your children to go to school. So we, the next generation, will not fail our own kids. We will make this change happen. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, next year. Take it from us. You created a mess for us, but we will make this world safer for our children.”

With Wednesday’s demonstration, and their March for Our Lives movement on March 24 in Washington, young voices are being heard. How will the nation’s adults respond? Hopefully, by amplifying their demand: Never again.

“No kid should be afraid to go to school, no kid should be afraid to walk outside, and no kid should have to worry about being shot. Now that’s why I’m marching.”

— Alfonso Calderón, Junior

“The ‘children’ you pissed off will not forget this in the voting booth. Don’t doubt the power of the younger generation, because we are a force to be reckoned with.”

—Aly Sheehy, Senior

“Maybe the adults have gotten used to saying ‘it is what it is,’ but if us students have learned anything, it’s that if you don’t study, you will fail. And in this case if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead, so it’s time to start doing something. 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, but because...we are going to be the last mass shooting.”

— Emma González, Senior

“High schools shouldn’t be hashtags every other day”

—Jaclyn Corin, Junior

“More prayer, Jesus, god, and compassion won’t bring back the victims that sadly lost their lives. It won’t bring back the sense of security that my fellow peers and I lost. The only way to get that back is through gun control starting now.”

—Jose Iglesias, Senior