Joined moms, dads, kids, teachers, pediatricians, gun-owners, gun-survivors, clergy, and a whole spectrum of beliefs at March For Our Lives who recognize that what we have in place has created way too much devastation and way too many tiny caskets.
Optimism typically comes easier to me than most people, but this is one area where I haven’t felt that much of it. Mass shootings have been such a recurring thing, from the time I was in grade school up to now when I have kids of my own. And though the stories seem to keep getting more gutting each time, it seems like we keep getting stalemated.
But I know when it comes to climate, doomerism isn’t helpful. It doesn’t tell the whole story and it only gets in the way of action. I imagine it’s similar when it comes to preventing gun violence.
Here are a few reminders I find very helpful.
You aren’t alone. Very far from it. Most of the country wants better gun laws than we have right now and the numbers aren’t even close. 93 percent of voters support background checks, 89 percent of Republicans, 87 percent of gun owners. There is strength in those numbers that gets unleashed when people speak up from the heart and organize.
The work isn’t in vain. I get that horrific gun deaths happen daily and we aren’t doing enough. Incrementalism is frustrating. But It’s way harder to measure what has been prevented. A slew of different laws have been passed at state and municipal levels over the past decade. Especially around 2018 and Parkland. And data does show us a meaningful difference based on locations where laws have been enacted. With the gun lobby in poor financial health and the momentum of local-level action, things have never been closer to a tipping point.
The heartbreak isn’t in vain. Martin Luther King said that “the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted” meaning the hearts that are soft enough to feel it all at the story of ten year old crushes being buried next to each other are the ones still capable of changing society.
Hope is where we plant our feet.
