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THURSDAY, MAY 26 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C

BY PHILIP KENNICOTT

We need a National Memorial to Gun Violence,

now.

It must be at the end of the National Mall, near the

base of the U.S. Capitol, where loyalty to the National

Rifle Association has long trumped the national

welfare, including the survival of our children.

Design and construction of the memorial should

begin immediately, and the memorial should be

imposing, sobering and monumental.

It should include the names of every victim of gun

violence, which is, of course, impracticable, but that

is the point. This memorial is meant to be finished

only when America’s grotesque fetish cult of guns

has finally yielded to peace.

There is one obvious and necessary site for the

memorial: the lopped-off triangle of land on the

north side of the Reflecting Pool, at the base of the

Capitol, a plot bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue,

Constitution Avenue and First and Third streets NW.

This is the last, large open space close to the Capitol.

And the new memorial must be close to the

Capitol, close enough to implicate and shame the

men and women who work inside it on a daily basis.

Year after year, decade after decade, gun violence

remains our preeminent source of national grief and

humiliation, a battle we lose every hour, with a toll

beyond calculation if measured in the only term that

matters, which is misery. All of this could be stopped,

and we could join the host of other countries, many

of them developed, prosperous democracies, in

which this scourge is unknown. We could, were it not

for the gun lobby and its dominion over a sufficient

number of elected representatives to thwart all

efforts at reasonable gun control.

The plot on the northwest side of the Capitol

grounds has the symbolic resonance and density

that the original designers of the Mall would have

wanted. A gun-violence memorial situated there

would give symmetry across the north-south axis of

Union Square, site of the brooding and powerful

memorial to Ulysses S. Grant. Thus, it would balance

the message of growth and fertility embodied in the

United States Botanic Garden, which is sited in the

mirror-image plot along Independence Avenue. One

side of the square would be a memorial to death; on

the other side, a garden of life. And between them, a

reflecting pool and a reminder of the Civil War, a war

SEE NOTEBOOK ON C2

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

A memorial to confront

the toll of gun violence

A structure to mark the deaths of those killed by firearms should be erected

on the National Mall, with a bell to ring through the Capitol’s chambers

KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST

MATT BURKHARTT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: A National Memorial to Gun Violence on the National Mall would be contiguous with the Peace

Monument, which features the figure of Grief hiding her face, and weeping on the shoulder of History; A law enforcement

personnel lights a candle outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., where 19 students and two adults were killed by a

gunman; a sign left at a memorial in Buffalo lists the names of the victims of a mass shooting this month.

BOOK WORLD

Books emphasize interiority, empathy and

deeper thought — things we all need. C2

‘THIS IS US’

The way they were when the series began

and where they were when it ended. C2

CAROLYN HAX

A parent has “grave misgivings” about

daughter’s polyamorous marriage. C4

BY SONIA RAO

Halsey posted a TikTok this week with
the effect of a hostage video. In it, she
gazes blankly toward the camera as
words appear on-screen: “basically i have
a song that i love that i wanna release
ASAP but my record label won’t let me.
ive been in this industry for 8 years and
ive sold over 165 million records and my
record company is saying that i can’t
release it unless they can fake a viral
moment on tiktok.”
Ironically, that very TikTok went viral
— attracting the attention the label want-
ed, but with indignation at its core. Some
wondered whether this was the market-
ing ploy. Others rallied behind Halsey,
who uses she/they pronouns, arguing
they “should be able to release music how
you want.” Fellow performer King Prin-
cess wrote, “Tell the girls !!!!”
The relationship between musical art-
ists and their labels has always been
tenuous as they often butt heads over
creative desires and business strategies;
Sara Bareilles said last year that her 2007
hit “Love Song,” in which she sings that
she is “not gonna write you a love song/
’Cause you asked for it, ’cause you need
one,” doubled as a frustrated response to
“feeling invisible” to her label, which she
SEE TIKTOK ON C8

Labels, artists

in a tit for tat

over TikToks

BY TRAVIS M. ANDREWS

Model Kate Moss, who dated Johnny
Depp from 1994 to 1998, briefly testified
from Gloucester, England, on Wednesday
morning during the sixth and final week
of testimony in the contentious trial
between Depp and his ex-wife Amber
Heard. She rebutted earlier testimony
from Heard, who had referred to a rumor
that Depp once pushed Moss down the
stairs on a trip to Jamaica.
“There had been a rainstorm. As I left
the room, I slid down the stairs and I hurt
my back. And I screamed, because I
didn’t know what happened to me and I
was in pain,” Moss said during her
three-minute testimony. Depp “came
running back to help me and carried me
to my room and got me medical atten-
tion.”
“He never pushed me, kicked me or
threw me down any stairs,” she added.
Depp has sued Heard for $50 million,
alleging defamation over a 2018 op-ed
she published in The Washington Post in
which she referred to herself as a public
figure representing domestic abuse.
Depp claimed the article damaged his
career and has denied allegations of
abuse. Heard countersued Depp for
$100 million after Depp’s lawyer Adam
Waldman gave several statements in the
media describing her claims as false.
SEE DEPP ON C5

Kate Moss

rebuts rumor

about Depp

BY PAUL FARHI

AND ELAHE IZADI

CNN anchor Victor Blackwell stood
outside a supermarket in Buffalo on May
16 and choked back tears as he reported
the details of a mass shooting in which
10 people were killed. He wondered
when he would have to report the next
massacre.
“I’ve done 15 of these, at least the ones
I can count,” Blackwell told viewers. “Are
we destined to just keep doing this, city
after city? Have we just resigned that
this is what we’re going to be?”
Barely a week later, he was doing No.

16. It fell to Blackwell to break the news
    to CNN viewers Tuesday afternoon that
    a South Texas elementary school had
    just been attacked by a gunman. By
    night, the death toll had reached 19
    children and two adults.
    Media coverage of the massacre in
    Uvalde, Tex., feels like a grotesque deja
    vu — the initial police alerts, the teem-
    ing crime scene, the live helicopter
    shots, the family tragedies and, inevita-
    bly, another round of inconclusive de-
    bates about gun control and mental
    health.
    NPR host Rachel Martin said mass
    shootings have become so routine that
    her station now has an informal play-
    book to cover them.
    SEE MEDIA ON C4

Reporting on

shootings is

vicious cycle