111ON A RECENT WEEKEND I WAS DOING SOME FALL CLEANING
when I uncovered my old T-shirt from the Million Mom
March, which took place on Mother’s Day in 2000. I held
up that shirt, with its pink and black logo, and remembered
walking on the National Mall with my 5-year-old son on my
shoulders, full of hope that a group of like-minded mothers
and others could make some sense out of what felt like chaos
with respect to guns. I believed that guns were bad, full stop.
Why couldn’t everyone see that?
I am older now and in many ways more moderate, including
my attitude toward gun ownership. Maybe my views began to
soften when I visited my sister and her new husband and found
a shotgun under the guest-room bed. Who, I wondered, keeps
a shotgun under the bed?! Well, when you are a man like my
brother-in-law, who is a lifelong hunter, a shotgun safely stored
under the bed is no big deal. Guns are such an integral part of
his life that when he walks the dog through the fields near their
house, he takes his shotgun in case he spots a rabbit that might
make a good stew. To my brother-in-law, a gun is a useful tool,
just like his chain saw and rototiller and washing machine.
Further softening: I had never held a gun in my hands until
my two older sons and I went clay-pigeon shooting on vacation
this past summer. Perhaps the younger me would have taken
a stand against clay-pigeon shooting—guns were bad! But the
older me thought it sounded like fun, as long as we all wore
protective glasses and noise-canceling headphones. As it
turned out, clay-pigeon shooting was both a) lots of fun and b)
something I can add to my very short list of talents.OVER THE YEARS, as my attitude softened, came horrifying
gun tragedies that claimed dozens of lives at the hands of a
small group of evil men. Tragedies we talk about using a sad
shorthand: Virginia Tech. Aurora. Sandy Hook. Pulse. And
now, Las Vegas. Maybe the city of Las Vegas looms so large in
our cultural imagination that the massacre there won’t ever
have a shorthand name. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. But
what’s very bad indeed is how, instead of feeling compelled to
march as I did in 2000, I now just feel a sense of... inevitability.
With each new mass shooting, that feeling of futility gains
ground. As my best friend said, “If Sandy Hook couldn’t change
anything, nothing will.”
When you are a moderate person, one of your defining
characteristics—if significant shortcomings—is that you
expect people around you to be moderate too. Which may
be why the strongest emotion I have felt since Oct. 1 is one of
disbelief that the spokesperson for our country’s leader saidnow is not the time to talk policy but “to unite as a
country.” Is anyone else tired of the suggestion that
when disaster (whether natural or man-made) strikes,
it just makes Americans stronger and more united? I’m
not sure which United States our President is living in,
but whichever one it is, I think I’m living in the other
one. Given that addressing gun violence is one of the
most politically divisive issues today, we need guidance
on how to unite. Because frankly, if we knew how to do
that, our population might be bigger by exactly 58.I WALKEDin the Million Mom March 17 years ago
because I wanted to show my son that ordinary
citizens have power, that together we can raise our
voices and make this country better. I’m sad to say
that I am having a hard time maintaining that belief.
I also marched because I want my children, and all
children, to be safe. As one of those nagging mothers
who doesn’t care about embarrassing her kids in order
to give them information that will keep them healthy,
from time to time I text my older boys news articles
like the one I sent last week about STDs being on the
rise. Never mind that my boys don’t like discussing
STDs with their mother—if I didn’t annoy them with
information about how they can stay safe, how would
they know I love them?
But when it comes to warning them about guns,
I’m flummoxed. And so, to the politicians who are
urging us to focus not on policy but on uniting: after
you tell us how to do that, maybe you can help me keep
kids alive. I’ve got a running list of places children
should avoid so they don’t get shot: nightclubs, movie
theaters, churches, college campuses, elementary
schools and outdoor concerts. Anything I missed?Van Ogtrop is the author ofJust Let Me Lie Down:
Necessary Terms for the Half-Insane Working MomSafe gun policy doesn’t
have to mean no guns—
or no safety
By Kristin van OgtropEssayThe Amateur
ILLUSTRATION BY TOMI UM FOR TIME