I confiscated my daughter’s phone last night. This is supposed to be a daily thing, but I’ll be honest and say we’ve fallen down the slippery slope of letting her use it as an alarm clock, a radio, a tutor, and whatever it was actually designed for, which is just a vague memory at this point. Basically, it’s grown into her thumbs.
But last night it was blowing up with talk of the mass shooting. I guess I should be more specific – there are so many mass shootings to choose from these days. I’m talking about the one at the Waffle House across town Sunday, where a naked guy (whose guns had been seized because he was DELUSIONAL, and then, somehow given BACK, because he was ??) walked into a restaurant and killed four people because Sunday, I guess.
Zoë’s friends were scared. They didn’t want to go to school today – which is crazy, because schools are super safe. Oh, wait.
Her phone was literally dripping with anxiety by bedtime, so I took it and sent it to the kitchen for a timeout. This morning, when I came downstairs at 6 am, I could see that the frantic texts had started up again. I pocketed that puppy and poured myself a cup of coffee, deciding that she could survive one day of school without Google Classroom if it saved her having to think about this crazy man with guns, at large in Nashville.
Then, as she walked out the door, I handed it back to her.
Not because I thought it was the right thing to do.
Because I’m selfish.
If my daughter ends up hiding in a broom closet while some guy with a boner for AR-15s makes target practice out of her classmates, I want to have one last chance to tell her how much I love her.
I’m not naïve. I know I couldn’t get there fast enough to help her. But I can’t even breathe around the idea that she’d die, all alone in the dark, without knowing just how precious she is to me.
I need the possibility of one last phone call.
This is where we are people.
This morning, four more families are planning funerals for their children because some crazy guy had a gun.
Have you ever thought about how you’d memorialize your own child? Which pictures you’d choose to tell the story of her entire life, of her ambitions, her dreams? What music you’d play? Whether you’d try for an open casket?
Neither had they.
On Friday, Zoë gave a speech in the shadow of the courthouse. Hundreds of students had gathered there for the National School Walkout commemorating the 19th anniversary of Columbine. They were asking for reforms to gun regulation.
To be specific, they were asking for 5 things.
- Universal background checks
- A ban on bump stocks
- A waiting period for the purchase of a firearm
- Requirements for the safe storage of firearms and penalties for adult gun owners whose loaded and unsecured guns are used by a child in a shooting
- More stringent follow through for the dispossession of firearms by domestic abusers and the mentally ill
None of these things are “radical.” None of these things infringe on anyone’s constitutional right to anything. None of these things should even be divisive.
Zoë wrote her speech herself. And she delivered it with passion.
If you don’t want to watch the clip, I’ll just share my favorite lines:
How many times have we heard a death toll after a mass shooting and we’re almost disgustingly unimpressed? ‘Only seven? That’s hardly any,’ we’ll say. That says something about our society, about our country and how desensitized to this endless stream of violence we are. Every death deserves a shock factor.”
It was certainly a shock to those four Nashville families on Sunday morning. And that shock traveled all the way across town and up through the floor of my kitchen like an earthquake that made my hand tremble as I handed my fourteen-year-old daughter her phone.
Just in case.
Just in case her school is next. Just in case her Sunday school class, or coffee shop, or concert, or movie is next. Just in case we haven’t done enough to make killing a room full of people harder than buying a pack of cigarettes. Just in case we haven’t prioritized children’s lives over recreational hobbies. Just in case, in the midst of all of our fighting and name-calling and battling with competing statistics we have forgotten one very simple truth:
Though it may not be possible to prevent losing our children to sickness, or automobiles, or natural disasters – It is impossible to shoot someone without a gun.
Steve Walls
This is so very sad. I’m in Germany right now and of course everyone knows I’m from Tennessee. I get questions like, “Does everyone in The US have a firearm. They are Sho Les when I reply, “not everyone, but there ARE more firearms than people in the US.” When I inquire about Europe, they say almost nobody that isn’t military or law enforcement has a gun. If you are a hunter, you can get a special permit. Funny, the only thing that people seem to be concerned about here is that they might be the victim of a pickpocket.