Notes from the gun debate in North Carolina: The struggle around guns in America tells us more about who we are and who we wish to become.
For the past five months I've been on the ground here in NC, intensely active in the gun reform debate. I've logged hundreds of hours with Senator Hagan's office--in person, on the phone, email, direct mail, social media-- and nearly as many with Senator Burr. I've spoken at rallies, collected and delivered petitions, used social media to shout out to those who would listen, support and become active as a result. I continue to write letters of sympathy and support to the families of Newtown, CT.
I listened to David Wheeler, Benny's dad, who implored each American parent to imagine experiencing what he and his family are enduring now. I now enter my child's first-grade classroom, glancing at the open cubbies and tiny tables and wonder where in the world these children would hide. Maybe their teacher, young and energetic, would stuff them through the windows out into the courtyard. I've witnessed the mother of a murdered son tell her story and demand that our nation, finally, step up and claim a moral authority that protects its citizens and cares for them in life, rather than death. This mother gravely explained to me that "murder is a different kind of death" and revealed the lifelong heartache of violent loss now all too common in America.
I've learned a great deal. I am the granddaughter of veterans of two world wars and the daughter of an Air Force serviceman yet I have been called a traitor. Thanks to a gun-rights activist I now know that, pursuant to the antiquated National Firearms Act of 1934, I can legally purchase a fully automatic weapon if I only pay a tax (which increases incrementally with each change of hands). I met an older gentleman who is a member of the NRA and an excellent listener, although we boldly disagree with one another. He informed me that "criminals buy cheap ammunition" rather than the kind he uses, which makes a clean hole in its target. His position around firearm possession comes from a deep sense of heroic duty in being "the good guy with a gun" and believes the good guy, if it's him, will always win. This is where the Hollywood critique comes in.
I ask people wherever I go, "Do you have any stories about guns or gun violence?" and, after a brief pause and the realization that gun wounds on their own or a loved one's flesh are not the only experiences, the answer is always "yes." I have told my own stories of having a gun pointed at me on a Florida highway, my husband being held-up at a gas station, the suicide of a fellow parent, the 1995 active shooter in Chapel Hill, my former street where UNC-CH student body president Eve Carson was gunned down in 2008. I know that for each one of us telling our stories, there are at least two more. We in this country who have been affected by guns and gun violence are no longer silent and this conversation, this debate, is no longer taboo.
I, along with many of us in our country watched as mothers told stories of murdered children and fathers cried tears of loss and anguish. Together, we witnessed the raw emotion of our President, presiding over one of the most somber events in our nation's history and his fierce refusal to let the tiny martyrs of Newtown be forgotten. We imagined the broken bodies and hearts that lay in the shattered glass of a classroom torn to shreds by bullets only meant to kill. We witnessed the miraculous courage of a town and community to help repair the families suffering the eternal exit wounds of their beloveds. We've collectively held our breaths as the parents, sisters, brothers, daughters, husbands of those slain in small town CT spoke clearly, compassionately, fiercely while holding one another up so each would not crumble.
I listened as a mother in that same small town in CT implored the state legislature to allow her to keep any type of gun to protect her children "as a mother bear protects her cubs," passionately believing that these weapons are her only chance against those who would attack her family home. I have spoken to gun owners--hunters, sportsmen, ex-military and those who own guns to protect their homes--democrat, republican, unaffiliated--and each one supports an expansion of our background check system, a ban on high capacity magazines and weapons of war, and tougher gun trafficking laws. "It just makes sense!" they say.
This debate continues to be a test of our common humanity. Repeatedly, I have heard that demanding changes in our gun laws after 12.14 is "an emotional response" or a "knee-jerk reaction." My response has been, "Of course it's emotional, unless you've lost your sense of humanity, and this isn't knee-jerk, it's a repetitive stress injury." I have seen passions run equally high among gun-rights activists. In Indianapolis, mothers witnessed the brandishing--not keeping or bearing--of loaded AR-15s, slung over the shoulders of men confronting them as they peacefully assembled with their babies and toddlers to demand change. Who have we become?
I've observed the language of this debate, including angry name-calling by people who hold extreme views on either end of the spectrum. These expressions continue to tease out the middle and define the edges so that the great majority of us who live in-between can work effectively together to create change. I've recognized that "law-abiding citizen" and "responsible gun owner" have been twisted to fit a cold-hearted agenda of gun-manufacturer greed. Let's be clear that law-abiding citizen includes all law-abiding citizens of the United States, and responsible gun owner means not only that we keep our firearms under lock and key to protect our own family but that we ensure that no gun falls into the wrong hands in order to protect one another.
This debate is about guns, yes, but at the same we are re-crafting who we are as American people. Rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness pitted against various interpretations of a constitutional amendment are shaping our ideas about how we see ourselves as Americans, how we identify as a nation and how heavily our image is imprinted by guns. A representative on the phone for Senator Burr responded to the criticisms of a constituent that "he supports the Second Amendment, not the Second Commandment" (I believe it's the Fifth or Sixth--depending on interpretation-- "Thou Shall not Kill" to which she meant to refer). And when it came to a vote, rather than honoring the proud history of our state that took a commanding lead in the Civil Rights struggle, the elephant in the room--armed not with dialogue but filibuster--stood up and said "No." With the defeat of the first attempt at gun reform in almost 20 years, it appears as though some of our elected officials are looking to replace the eagle of our freedom with Yosemite Sam.
Yet with unbounded love and compassion and tireless legwork, parents and families of Newtown children and teachers, in their deepest hours of pain, have awakened the consciousness of a nation. They have opened themselves up to critique and ridicule as they have helped to unearth the voices of millions of us who have experienced gun violence. They have awakened the sleeping giant of the American middle, and have focused our scrutiny on gun laws, lobbies and our legislators. Theirs are the faces and embodied spirit of America, literally moving mountains as a 14,000 pound hunk of granite inscribed with Crayola-colored names makes its way slowly from Maine, winding through fifteen New England firehouses to rest in the town square where grief, tragedy and transformation all share a home.
We're in an era of great struggle in America--politically, economically, emotionally, socially, spiritually--no slab of granite left unturned. The symbolic weight of the American love affair with guns is crushing us and until we lift that burden, our founding fathers turn their heads and weep with us, and wait for the America they imagined to emerge.