3,044 students did not graduate this year due to gun violence and yet a large proportion of Americans and more tragically, influential Americans, still cling intransigently to their “right to bear arms.”
Leo Burnett Chicago and Change The Ref have highlighted this strange juxtaposition with a wickedly wonderful plan. It tricked David Keene, former president and current board member of the NRA into delivering the graduation speech to those 3,044 students, which were represented by empty chairs.
In another masterstroke (admittedly not of Change The Ref’s making), if either Keene or John Lott, American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate, who also took the stage, had conducted a proper background check on the school, they would have seen that the school is fake.
The stunt was filmed by Hungry Man filmmaker, Bryan Buckley.
“Graduation day is meant to symbolise potential and achievement,” Change The Ref wrote on the campaign website, TheLostClass.com. “But for this group of students, it’s become a day to wonder what the rest of their lives would have looked like. Although the futures of those in The Lost Class may have been taken away, they can still make a difference in the future of America by urging the government to require universal background checks on gun sales.”
Although much of the US was shut down, 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades, and in the first five months of 2021 the rate of gun deaths has been even greater than in the previous year. The size of the Lost Class was estimated by compiling firearm deaths, by age, since 2003 using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data and matching it to the grade that the Class of 2021 was in at the time.
The Lost Class’ graduation gift, a petition to demand that lawmakers take action in requiring universal background checks, is available at ChangeTheRef.org.
