Gun Violence: When Normal Becomes Unacceptable

After yet another mass shooting, this time in Virginia Beach where 12 people were killed, many of us had the same painful reactions of grief for the families, fear that this could happen to someone I love one day, anger at the gun manufacturers whose influence through the NRA makes them complicit in both the mass shootings and the daily epidemic of gun violence. As a parent, I’m heartsick and angry that our society now traumatizes even our youngest children by making them do active shooter drills at school. I’ve written about all of this many times before given the terrifying frequency of mass and daily shootings in the U.S. and the scale of the overall gun violence epidemic.

I think it’s impossible to tell the story of this movement’s progress without looking at the impact of Sandy Hook where 20 6- and 7-year-old elementary school children and six adults were murdered. An oft-circulated 2015 tweet from political pundit Dan Hodges lamented, “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

But in many ways the reverse is true. Many parents of children lost at Sandy Hook rose up and came together with other gun violence victims’ fathers and mothers — and have dedicated the rest of their lives to the gun safety movement — precisely because Sandy Hook was unbearable to them. The enormous traction, energy, and funding they’ve gotten to expand that work and make steady progress is due in no small part to the fact that the senseless killing of children has become unacceptable to a whole generation of parents.

I don’t believe that senseless, stupid, murderous gun violence will ultimately be accepted as normal. Rather, a new generation of parents, a new insistence for change from coming-of-age voters, and a new network of urban activists committed to making their neighborhoods safe for black and brown bodies will ultimately prevail. That must be our hope and our commitment.

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