What an honor and a privilege it is to address the living members of the Class of 2018, and your teachers, parents, friends, and first responders. I must admit however that I am somewhat at a loss for words. I wanted to say, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” but that is only true if, today, you are not shot to death by a classmate. I could just say, “Today is a day that you woke up still alive,” a sentiment true and good, but also awful, haunted as it is by the students who will never wake again, shot by their classmates, at least one of your peers for every single week of 2018. And 2017. And 2016. And… I want to say “Don’t be afraid to—” but I can’t fill in that blank.   Not when your fellow citizens are afraid that doing anything to protect you means giving up on a cherished lie, an old misconception of a mythic militia of which they were never a part.   Not when the right to bear every single kind of weapon is equally worth dying for—that is to say,