I’m not sure that many of us saw this coming: this seemingly sudden switch of tide triggered by young people finally emboldened enough to point out that the generations preceding them have failed signally to protect them from a rising tide of violence spurred by the ready availability and ubiquity of military-style weapons. And not only to point out our failure, but decide to unite. Woody Guthrie’s “Talkin’ Union” comes to mind: “You may be down and out, but you ain’t beaten; you can pass out a leaflet and call a meetin’. Talk it over; speak your mind; decide to do somethin’ about it!”

The signs in the Montpelier crowd, if you read them with a critical eye, were all pointed in the same direction, but showed what a disparity exists in solutions to the problem of gun violence. There were, of course, the usually grumpy signs of Second Amendment fundamentalists: “Don’t Tread on Me!” The problem with that motto is that it’s only a vague threat that nobody has to redeem. How much more effective it might be if it specified what the implied “...or else” was. There were others, equally fervently displayed, recommending keeping guns “out of the hands of the wrong people.” That one’s headed for endless litigation; who decides who are the wrong people? The best were the signs balancing the right to own a military-style weapon against the sign-carrier’s right to be secure in his or her person.

All of this is predictive of the debates to come, once congresspeople become convinced that the young marchers mean what they say: that, once having achieved the franchise, they’ll resolutely vote against representatives and senators who accept campaign donations or other favors from the National Rifle Association, that once benign shooting sports group now morphed into a grotesquerie peddling irrational fears and, coincidentally, offering simple solutions for combating them.

I haven’t yet met or debated a “Second Amendment defender” who doesn’t honestly believe, no matter how absurdly, that “liberals” and the government desire to “take away” his guns. There seems to be no way to crack this granite wall of conviction. On the other side, I’ve spoken with no one responsible with any such designs – except, like me, on military-style, high-capacity street-sweepers.

Well, the kids are into it now, up to their necks, and I can only wish them well. They’re allied with some powerful benefactors, and if they can keep it together in the coming difficult months, they’ll hit the polls this fall and in 2020 like a log drive in the spring freshet. They’ll also discover that such an enterprise as theirs is also a lot like a cavalry charge. The changes they’re demanding are unpopular – anathema even – to the wise and wily folks on the other side, and there’ll be casualties as they cross the open field. Woody Guthrie again: “Now, boys, you’ve come to the hardest time; they’re gonna try to bust that picket line.”

Emma Gonzales, the daughter of a Cuban-American attorney and a powerful student speaker, gets this for her efforts (from Facebook): “A teenage lesbian who wants to take away peoples’ (sic) right to self defense wearing the flag of a country who imprisoned and murdered gay people, after making sure only the state was armed.” It’s going to be a long year, Emma. Your arguments will be drowned in a sea of invective and innuendo. You and your friends will have to carry your cause as carefully as a waiter crossing a room with an overfull glass. But remember that many founding fathers were your age at the time of our first revolution – Alexander Hamilton, 19; James Monroe, 18. And their messages to each other went by horse and rider or ship. You can communicate in real time with almost anyone almost anywhere in the world.

Your biggest problem, beside the scurrilous attacks, will be that there are so many ideas being bruited about as solutions to our national problem. You describe yourself as “indecisive...don’t even have a favorite color.” That’s over. Time to decide: If indeed you do manage to topple Senator Rubio with his NRA millions, who will be your new senator, and what will you want of her? I won’t presume to give you my solution, even though it’s the best, because I think you all can work it out without grampa’s advice.

We adults have somehow managed to create a mess for our heritage. Sorry; but it’s yours now. I’ll leave you one last bit of Woody: “Take it easy, boys. But take it!”