If anti-gun teens really turn out and vote, we'll witness a new American Revolution

The size of the March For Our Lives demonstration in Washington, D.C., on Saturday was estimated as high as 800,000, and if crowds in other cities are included, more than 1 million people turned out to demand action on banning assault-style rifles and taking measures to end mass shootings (Associated Press photo).

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Florida high school massacre survivors warned NRA-endorsed politicians to prepare for defeat at the polls in November by a new wave of teenage voters.

In Saturday demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and other cities in America and around the world, protesters called for a ban on assault-style rifles and passage of other gun-control laws in a bid to end mass shootings.

If they register and go to the polls, the anti-gun teens who organized the March For Our Lives could ease one of the most corrosive influences in our democracy:

Voter apathy in national, state and local elections.

Millions of new voters would be nothing less than a new American Revolution -- despite the best efforts of Republicans to suppress the vote, and the news media to divide us by reporting almost exclusively on politics.

Clinton defeat

Registered Democrats who sat out the 2016 presidential election were a major factor in the defeat of Hillary Clinton and the Electoral College victory of serial liar Donald J. Trump.

In 2013, voter indifference to the Democratic candidate in New Jersey led to the reelection of Chris Christie, even though his first term showed him to be the worst governor in state history.

And in Hackensack's April 2017 school election, only 642 out of 21,397 registered voters -- that's 3% -- weighed in on the $109 million budget, and elected three members to the nine-member school board.

Thus, the discredited Zisa family political dynasty retained control of the city's Board of Education after their candidates had been trounced by City Council reformers in 2013.

Trump in Florida

President Trump, who fled the White House and spent the weekend at his Florida golf resort, was silent on the extraordinary turnout to remember the 17 students or staffers killed on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

At The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, Columnist Mike Kelly didn't bother working on Saturday to cover similar demonstrations in Montclair, Newark and other New Jersey communities.

His Sunday column demanded an apology -- but not from Trump, who caved into the National Rifle Association after the Parkland shooting, and didn't call for new gun-control measures.

Instead, Kelly had readers eyes rolling with his column on Facebook's vulnerability to a data-mining firm working for Trump -- a story broken last week by The New York Times.

The major piece on The Record's Opinion front today -- pushing Kelly's column below the fold -- is about professional baseball (1O).

Give me a break.