Errol Louis is the host of "Inside City Hall," a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

(CNN) At one point in the course of a difficult evening in which he was pressed on his record and rhetoric about gun control, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio worried aloud that the national debate about gun control might trail off into yet another deadlock.

"Our attention span in this country on virtually every issue is 7 to 10 days," Rubio told the crowd at CNN's town hall Wednesday night. "And then we pivot. We're one tweet or one story away from focusing on something else."

He needn't have worried. The powerful, laser-focused energy of the students, parents and teachers of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is part of an inspiring awakening of children and families determined to shake America from its national slumber on gun violence.

One student, Ryan Deitsch, talked about huddling as a 5th grader when his elementary school went into lockdown, and then needing to do the same at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week. Describing active-shooter drills, lockdowns and code reds, he said : "They've been a part of my life for as long as I can remember."

That sad, unacceptable reality is what makes the current debate about gun control different from the political impasses that followed past school massacres. Millions of children have grown up in the shadow of terror and violence, watching one school massacre after another -- and the Parkland students, like many others now, are saying no more.