Newsday letters to the editor for Friday, Aug. 10, 2018

Lane Filler’s column “Get wise to the perils of social media” [Opinion, Aug. 1] reminded me of the quote often attributed to Vladimir Lenin: “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

We are only beginning to understand the potential for both good and evil of 21st century technology. Right now, social media is the rope we Americans have sold to each other and the world. The Russians, among others, are trying to use this digital rope to hang us by dividing us, and if they succeed, we have only ourselves to blame.

Jill Hissong,Rockville Centre

Students will fight further gun violence

Students Against Gun Violence Long Island held a rally in Huntington on July 29 [“Rally against gun violence,” News, July 30]. After months of weekly meetings, late-night phone calls and thousands of group chats and social media posts, 150 students marched to the rally and more 600 people attended.

We had one goal: urging our peers, and all Long Islanders, to vote for candidates who support common-sense gun safety reform, and to vote out those who don’t.

Speakers Paul Guttenberg, Lucy Peters and Linda Beigel, all of whom lost family members in the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida, had a profound impact at the rally. We are grateful to them, our fellow student organizers, all of the speakers, Rep. Tom Suozzi and all of the organizations that supported us.

As the youth of Long Island, like our fellow advocates across America, we want a country where stories like Guttenberg’s, Peters’ and Beigel’s never have to be told.

Adults have failed us. It’s up to our generation to make a change. We are more powerful than we know. The NRA has a stranglehold on too many in Congress, but we are not going away!

Andrew Goldman,

Syosset

Owen Toomey,

Huntington

Editor’s note: The writers are interns in the re-election campaign of Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove).