This commentary is by Becca Brown McKnight of Burlington, a mother and business owner. She had never been interested in guns until having an elementary school-aged child required her to be.
It’s May 25, 2022, in Burlington, Vermont, and I just sent my 7-year-old son off to first grade with the 17 others he shares a classroom with. I’m terrified.
Last night, the nation was rocked by yet another report of tiny souls being erased from the earth by preventable gun violence. Week after week, day after day, we stand by and do nothing while mass shootings unfold across the news.
We’re about 15 days from the last day of school, and this year I’m excited about summer break for a new reason: Once school is over, there’s less risk of my kid getting killed in a shooting.
Gun violence is the No. 1 killer of children and teens in America. Number one. That means more kids are killed by guns than anything else. And still nothing. Instead, we pass laws making it easier to get guns.
Imagine if, rather than researching and preventing heart disease — the leading cause of death for adults in the U.S. — the American Heart Association encouraged smoking and high-cholesterol diets, and discouraged routine screenings, resulting in more deaths? That is what we are doing with guns and children in this country.
I’ve written to and called my congresspeople. To the governor. The mayor. The school superintendent. They never pick up the phone. They never write back. They never do anything.
We are failing the most precious and vulnerable people in our society.
I lament to my husband and friends, and all they can do is look back at me vacantly. “Yes, it’s horrible,” they agree. “But there’s nothing we can do. We have no power. And we’re still dealing with the pandemic. Who has the energy to be fired up about anything anymore?”
“If Sandy Hook didn’t change anything, nothing will. I just try not to think about it,” they say.
The United States is the only country in the world where this happens. The reason is clear. It isn’t complicated. We have more guns per person than any other country in the world, and it is easier to get them here than anywhere else on the planet.
I’ve donated to organizations fighting for “sensible gun laws.” Talk about an oxymoron.
These organizations celebrate occasional wins, but really all they can hope to do is nibble around the edges. Seven more days of waiting period here, one more group of people added to red flag laws there.
It isn’t working.
Vermont hasn’t yet played host to a mass school shooting on the scale of Sandy Hook, Stoneman Douglass, or Robb Elementary, but we are by no means immune to it. It’s a matter of when, not if. Approximately 50% of households here own a firearm (a difficult number to pin down. Why? Because we don’t have an accurate system for tracking gun ownership) and our laws on gun sales and use are middle-to-bottom of the pack in terms of stringency.
Already this year, our child’s school was closed for a day due to a gun-related incident, and some parents kept their kids home on another occasion due to a nationwide school violence threat on social media. The vultures are circling.
Today, I’m calling for leadership and massive, societal action. We just came together as a nation to fight Covid-19 and proved that, when we want to, we can actually change things. We can mobilize trillions of dollars, lock down entire cities, shutter entire industries. If enough leaders had the courage, we could even alter the Constitution.
We need this level of action on gun control to protect our children. Enough with the “third rail.” It’s a figment of the NRA’s imagination. Nothing should be off limits.
As we head into campaign season, join me in pressing each and every candidate on this topic, and urging them to go further.
Join me in becoming a single-issue voter on gun control.
If you are a leader with any kind of platform to speak from, please use it to press for change on this topic. If you are an average citizen like me with ideas on how we can take action beyond the political sphere, since it has so badly failed us, please share them.
To the “safe gun owners” reading this (including the many in my own extended family), yes, your gun rights may need to be restricted. Politicians might be afraid to say this out loud, but I — a mother in fear for her children’s lives — am not. We all have to make compromises for each others’ well-being sometimes. I hope you can see that children’s lives are worth it.
We are sometimes described as “a nation numb to gun violence.” But are we? I don’t feel numb. I feel devastated. I feel angry. I feel scared. Let us not be numb. Let us grieve, and then let us act. We must. We must. We must.
