What kind of nation are we when our children grow up scared to go to school? 

Children, who fear roaming a hallway or sitting at a desk or entering a school's doorway clad with metal detectors. Is that the sort of thing kids growing up in what we call the greatest country in the world should feel? 

Fear of school. Fear of movie theaters. Fear of synagogues, churches, mosques, malls, concerts, walking down the street – the list goes on and on. The fear remains deeply held. And America remains an ugly – a tragic – outlier on the map of gun violence: A moral failing to a degree that no other developed nation can claim.

Not even two weeks after gun violence struck Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – not even 14 days after they had survived an attack and witnessed friends lose their lives – I met with students from Parkland. They were still just kids, grieving kids, but they channeled their grief into action, fed up with lawmakers who refused to pass laws to stop the sort of violence they lived through.

Do you know what some of them told me that day, friend? That they were scared of going back to school. That their trauma was still so raw. That they feared somebody else would get their hands on a weapon of war, and that they might be shot and killed. 

Three years on from the violence that struck Parkland – our nation is at an inflection point: Will we continue allowing our country to be one that breeds senseless violence and untold amounts of fear? Or will we finally take the sort of action that boldly states: This is no way to live. Fear is no way to live.

The students from Parkland chose a brave path. Through their trauma, they organized. Through their pain, they spoke out. Through their anger, they marched. Through their love for those lost and those who survived alongside them, they galvanized a movement that could not be overlooked – could not be dismantled by the corrupt influence of the gun lobby. 

Many of us in Congress followed suit. We heard their urgency and rose to the moment. In the House, we passed universal background checks. We passed an assault weapons ban. It was just the start of much-needed action, but a big first step. As the Senate majority leader at the time, Mitch McConnell blocked this action. With a new administration in the White House and emboldened Democratic majorities in Congress, I am both hopeful and confident that change will at long last be solidified. 

Change is one of the greatest, most tangible ways we can honor those we've lost – in Parkland, in Orlando, in far too many American communities to name. We've turned the page and are looking at our greatest opportunity ever to pass meaningful gun reform.

Days like today remind us why we must keep the fire in our bellies, fight with everything in our heart and get the job done – so that fear never, ever reigns supreme in the hearts of our children. Ever. 

My heart, my prayers, my thoughts are with the survivors of Parkland today. But just as importantly, my word is with them, too, and my word is this: I will do whatever I can to end the scourge of gun violence in America. 

Congresswoman Val Demings