“Mom, I don’t
want to die.” These are the words my daughter spoke to me yesterday soon after
arriving home from school. My eyes welled immediately with tears, and my smart,
funny, vivacious six year old looked up at me with troubled eyes. “I shouldn’t
have told you. Mom, I worry about you. What if there’s an intruder? I can hide
behind the TV. What about you?” I checked my tears, explaining to her it was my
job to keep her safe, and that I don’t want her to worry about me. Deep inside,
my heart shattered, and I felt a shift. Enough is enough. You see, this is what
life has become for our children. Crisis drills, where children learn to hide
in silence, in darkened classrooms and make themselves small so as to not be
tiny targets. We are teaching them fear, and that their lives aren’t important
to us. At least, not when it comes to guns.
As parents, from the moment we find
out about our child, we make changes. Mothers to be watch every bite of food, go
to the doctor religiously, research to keep ourselves and our babies safe. Once
born, we bundle them in swaddles, put them to sleep on their backs in cribs or
bassinets with only a blanket. Why? To prevent SIDS. We put them in car seats,
checking and rechecking latches to protect them in the event of a crash. In a
million ways, big and small, we do our best as parents and as a society to
protect them. Except in one area. We’ll protect them, it seems, from crib
bumpers and stuffed animals, but not from guns.
Uh oh. I’ve done it now, haven’t I? I
hear you. “It’s not a gun problem.” You’re rolling your eyes, warming up your
fingers to tell me the same meaningless platitudes that are always used. Well, I
am here to say that to me, that’s BS. Look, I don’t think guns have the power
to get up and shoot of their own accord. I am not dense. I also don’t think
guns in and of themselves are bad. However, there comes a time when as a
society we have to admit we have a gun problem. If you TRULY believe that we
don’t, then you are willfully ignoring the problem. And that, more than anything,
angers me.
I don’t want to take your guns. I have
no use for them. I don’t want to hinder your ability to hunt, or protect your
family, if that’s what you choose. My question, however, is why do you think
you need an AR 15 or similar weapon to achieve this? You DON’T. There is NO
good reason for a civilian to have these weapons. They exist for one reason
only: to kill. By allowing them and high capacity magazines into our society, we
are setting ourselves up for more disaster. Now’s where you tell me it’s still
not a gun problem, right? It’s a mental health issue. If that’s true, why’s the
current administration made it EASIER for mentally unfit people to get guns? No
answer? Me either. I am all for better mental health in this country. It’s
crucial for our well-being and it’s sadly neglected. However, mental health and
sensible gun control are not mutually exclusive. Shocker, right? Especially since
the vast majority of mentally ill people will never harm anyone. The vast
majority of mass shooters aren’t mentally ill at all. No, instead they are only
hateful, cruel people with malicious hearts that we as a society gave the means
to take people out.
That’s not something you want to
hear, is it? Sorry, but it doesn’t change the truth. What’s next? Oh yes. “We
already have gun control laws.” Guess what? They. Don’t. Work. As long as we
allow people to get these weapons we are failing. If you have something in your
home that’s broken, perhaps a chair, do you ignore it and keep sitting in it
and busting your butt? No. You either fix it or get a new chair. Why are we
afraid of more stringent background checks? Why don’t we have sufficient
waiting periods? And most of all, why is the sale and purchase of AR 15s
possible here? What can you possibly need these for?
The Second Amendment. Ah, yes, that
lovely gem from a bygone era. Guess what? That applied to muskets, not AR 15s.
Our founding fathers had no concept of the types of weapons and cruelties we’d
inflict on one another. It was never meant to become a rallying cry. It was
never meant to become more important than our children’s lives. You’ll argue
that your firearms are to protect yourself and others. I ask you this: what are
you protecting by giving those with no need for these weapons opportunities to
have them? Freedoms? We have no freedom if we are debating turning our teachers
into armed guards. Our schools becoming prisons, the hallways battlefields, isn’t
freedom. Being wary of large crowds or concerts or even a house of God isn’t
freedom. We are slaves to a culture we have created, but are too weak or ineffectual
to change. It’s not that we can’t, it’s that we WON’T.
I keep hearing we can’t stop these
massacres. Pardon my language, but it’s bullshit. We know what we have to do,
but there is a contingent among us that clings to a barrier of steel and metal,
shouting that more guns is the answer. To that I say, you are wrong. If your
security in life comes from a weapon, please tell me how this is a good thing? Why
is your right to own a militia’s worth of weapons more important than a child’s
right to go to school and simply learn about math and science instead of how to
hide from a shooter? Why is your AR 15 more special than our ability to enjoy a
concert without fear of death? Your hobby shouldn’t supersede the rights of my
child to not be afraid of dying at the age of six. It SHOULD be hard to own firearms.
It’s an awesome responsibility. It shouldn’t be for everyone and it shouldn’t
be undertaken lightly. Those of you that think gun free zones are a bad idea,
or that teachers should be armed to the teeth to protect our children, I beg
for you to give me reasons, other than the ones mentioned, that explain why.
Please don’t explain to me how I am just a bleeding heart liberal that has no
sense and blindly follows what I see on the TV. My feelings have little to do
with politics, or which party I vote for. I’m just a mother, who has to explain
to my child why it’s imperative that she listen to her teachers and hide in
silence, in darkness that scares her so that she is safe. I have to explain to
her how she is not to, under any circumstances, attempt to help her teachers
fight off a gunman, because knowing my brave little girl, with her fierce heart
and spirit, she would. I have to tell her to hide, so if the worst should
happen, she doesn’t die from the bullets and the guns that you fight so hard
for.
The hard truth is this: we don’t
want to change. If we did, Parkland wouldn’t have happened. Pulse wouldn’t have
happened. Vegas wouldn’t have happened. If we wanted to change, Sandy Hook
would have been the catalyst. Think about that. We let a madman go in and
slaughter kindergarteners and did NOTHING. “Thoughts and Prayers” has become
the common response, as though that frivolous phrase, now so hackneyed and
meaningless, will prevent the next disaster. It won’t. Only action, and
sensible gun control will. Thoughts and prayers don’t plug bullet holes,
rebuild organs in young bodies that have been ripped to shreds by these
weapons. Thoughts and prayers don’t make someone say, “You know, maybe I
shouldn’t do this. Maybe I shouldn’t go into my school and kill all the people
because I’m pissed off at the world.” Thoughts and prayers mean absolutely
NOTHING unless we take steps ourselves to prevent the next massacre. I hope
like hell that Parkland, with these children that have lived their entire lives
in a post Columbine world of crisis drills will be the ones to wake us up.
These brave, brave kids are doing what we have not had the guts to do: stand up
and say no more. Don’t discredit them. They’ve stood in their schoolmate’s
blood and watched their teachers and fellow students be carried out in body
bags. They are at an age where they can or will soon be able to vote. They are
fighting for their right to live, for my child’s right to live. They should
have our full support, because those kids have lived through horrors that will
haunt them for the rest of their lives, yet they are standing for all of us.
Most of you have tuned me out by
now. If you are still here, and you don’t agree with me, that’s your
prerogative. I knew writing this that I wouldn’t change your minds. I could
spout facts and figures all day long, and the truth is, you wouldn’t care. You’ve made your decisions, but I’ve made
mine. I will fight until AR 15s and other similar weapons are no longer
available. I will fight until our leaders listen. I will fight for my daughter,
so she never has to be faced with what multitudes of other students in our
society have had to face. I do it for her, and I do it for your kids too. If
this is the sword I must fall upon, I am okay with that. I will do what it
takes to make sure that our kids aren’t the next victims of a Sandy Hook or a
Parkland. There should be no more.
