Bill Murray: What I See Today Recalls Vietnam War Protests

He says students have the power and the idealism it takes
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 23, 2018 12:30 AM CDT
Murray: Anti-Gun Students Are Like Vietnam War Protesters
Bill Murray arrives for the North American premiere of "Isle of Dogs" at the Paramount Theatre during the South by Southwest Film Festival on Saturday, March 17, 2018, in Austin, Texas.   (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP)

The students in Florida pushing for an end to gun violence after the Parkland mass shooting remind Bill Murray of the students who pushed for an end to the Vietnam War half a century ago. "It really was the students that began the end of the Vietnam War," the actor writes in an NBC op-ed. "It was the students who made all the news, and that noise started, and then the movement wouldn't stop. I think, maybe, this noise that those students in Florida are making—here, today—will do something of the same nature." "For students to be worried about what could happen to them at school, that makes for a horrible moment," Murray says. "It's just a horrible place for us to be at."

Murray praises the idealism of students like the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors, who joined gun control protests within days of the shooting that killed 17 staff and students. "The thing that's so powerful about students is that, when you haven't had your idealism broken yet, you're able to speak from a place that has no confusion, where there is a clear set of values," he says, though he believes that idealism survives in everybody's conscience. "Sometimes it's just a whisper, but, in some people, it's a shout," he says. Click for the full column. Murray is one of many celebrities supporting Saturday's March for Our Lives anti-gun violence event, CNN reports. The protest, led by Parkland survivors, will involve a rally in Washington, DC, and sister protests in hundreds of other cities. (More Bill Murray stories.)

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