not selling guns at the local five and dime to anyone with a dollar

...a policy which has worked so well with illegal drugs...

has nothing to do with owning people

Maybe not in the intentions of the protesters, but when they become the victims of police abuse or drafted for a war they don't believe in, how then will they be able to resist?

How will they resist the forces, not even of the "legitimate" governments, but of organized crime and terrorist groups? Both of which are growing in America under the inept or corrupt eye of federal agencies and local police.

that connection only exists in your ideology

...an ideology which was nourished by historical events showing that armed civilians are better than disarmed ones. Well, to promote liberty anyway.

young people speaking out and being heard is only a good thing in my view, even if what they say is not what I want them to say

It's good that they participate.

It's not an unmitigated good. Not when their participation is based on wrong facts.

Must they be told not to participate? No. They must be made better informed so their participation is more useful.

Today I talked with Cousin. Cousin admits she knows zero about Polly Ticks. Yet she has concrete complaints about them. And asked for one or two opinions about political issues (one of those tangentially related to gun control issues, though we didn't go deep on that); knowing I'm (relatively) an expert, and knowing she's soon going to cast her first ballot. I want her to participate. And I want her to make others of her generation participate. But I definitely don't want her to participate uninformed. That's worse than not participating.