By now the entire country is well aware of the horrible news-- a troubled 19-year-old, Nikolas Cruz, took an AR-15 to a Parkland, Florida high school and opened fire killing 17 students and teachers.

Yet, with their bravery and determination our children have revived the nation’s hope in the future in the aftermath of such a terrible tragedy. And for that we must be grateful too.

Thank you to Emma González, the 18-year-old who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killing field, and with a fiery speech filled with pain and truth became the voice of her generation. She spoke with the strength and rage, the honesty and passion absent from the duplicitous, self-serving and cowardly words of the nation’s fork-tongued president and politicians.

“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy, and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us that nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association,” said González, her voice never faltering despite her tears, and her pained teenage words resounding with the power and maturity of  a morally irrefutable truth.

After reminding the grieving audience at the Saturday Fort Lauderdale rally of the $30 million the NRA spent to help Trump become president, she added: “Thirty million dollars! And divided by the number of gunshot victims in the United States in the one and one-half months in 2018 alone, that comes out to being $5,800. Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump? If you don't do anything to prevent this from continuing to occur, that number of gunshot victims will go up and the number that they are worth will go down. And we will be worthless to you.”

Thank you to all the young people who survived for your courage in standing up to the despicable complicity with murder of the politicians who have sold their souls to the devil, and for so long have been willing to sacrifice our children on the altar of NRA blood money.

Thanks to our kids for their determination to rip out the masks off Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and their “thoughts and prayers,” as well as all the other hypocrites and cowards posing as defenders of the constitution, while being nothing more than mercenaries who have peddled their consciences to the NRA merchants of death.

“To every politician who has taken donations from the NRA: Shame on you!” González said, and a visibly moved crowd echoed her words like a mantra.

Thanks to our children who, with their courage and determination, have shaken the nation out of its horrified stupor.