once I was rock climbing and I got
dangerously high before I realized that
my harness wasn’t safely attached to the
rope so my life which I thought was
being held safely was literally in my
own hands I had a moment of perfect
clarity where I realized I was gonna
have to get myself down and I was gonna
really have to be perfectly present and
perfectly focused to get that done
perfect clarity is stripping away the
details of all things all insignificant
things so that you can focus on one
important idea it’s not we’ve called it
simplicity but when I’ve lived it I’ve
experienced moments of perfect clarity I
had perfect clarity as I sat next to my
cousin’s bed as she died slowly after a
horrible accident I had perfect clarity
the day my son was born and in fact I’ve
lived with a kind of perfect clarity
ever since then that the main reason I
exist is to keep him safe now I have a
good marriage and I have a job that I
enjoy
I have faith and activism that give my
life meaning I have an unhealthy
addiction to reality TV and shonda
rhimes shows but when you strip it all
away the reason I exist is to make sure
that my son and my daughter who was born
a few years later live my constant
mantra is please God let these children
outlive me I had perfect clarity the
moment I saw the man with the gun
pointed at my wife’s head it was
November 2008 just a few days after
President Obama’s first election it was
November and it was only about seven
o’clock in the evening but it was dark
already because the time had just
changed we’d been at the grocery store
I was very very pregnant came out and I
got in the car talking on the cell phone
to my dad
while Amy put the groceries away in the
trunk and I noticed somebody pulled up
behind us and then Amy got in the car
and I heard her say no you don’t have to
do this and when I turned and looked the
first thing I saw was the gun and it was
like time stopped everything went silent
the moment seemed to be wrapped in
cotton and I had the clarity to say to
my dad dad were being robbed I’ve got to
go hung up the phone and just by pure
instinct walked away from the car with
my back to the car so that the baby and
my body was as far away from the gunman
as possible Amy had a harder time with
it she had to get out right next to him
he stood there and demanded her wallet
demanded her phone with the gun on her
the whole time but eventually she got
out as well he got in our car his
accomplice pulled forward and they both
drove away the local paper and the TV
Evening News didn’t pick up the news of
our carjacking unfortunately in
Washington DC incidents like this are
pretty regular but a local blogger in
our neighborhood did write about it and
he said two things he said that we were
we were left unharmed and that we
probably wish we had a gun with us and
both of those things are wrong you don’t
live through an incident of gun violence
unharmed you may not die you may not
bleed but the emotional impact of an
incident like ours is long and real and
exceptionally painful so these shocking
clarifying moments when everything comes
into view I have experience with that
also though
have experience with clarity that comes
after disorientation so you have this
moment a moment in time that’s very
confusing and you don’t know what’s
going on and then eventually the lesson
of the moment comes to you and so this
was similar also in 2008 my dad called
me to say there was a shooting at your
brother’s church today my brother and
his wife were at home with a brand-new
baby so they were unharmed they were not
physically harmed my sister-in-law
wasn’t sitting in the quiet room at the
back of the church we’re parents with
fussy babies keep them quiet that’s the
spot where the man stood as he started
to shoot into the congregation and what
I figured out from this is that I think
all of us as Americans living in an
insane time create this notion that
keeps us safe in our minds we have to
believe that even though thirty thousand
people a year die from gun violence and
even though young people are killing
each other on our city streets and even
though we’re having mass shootings
happening at malls and movie theaters
and elementary school classrooms somehow
we have to believe this couldn’t happen
to me this doesn’t happen to my family
that’s something that happened somewhere
what far away and that was taken from me
I could had perfect clarity
I could no longer pretend that this
couldn’t happen to my family because it
was pure luck that my brother and my
sister-in-law and my niece and my nephew
weren’t at that church that day and I
know a story of a woman who was at that
church that day and it haunts me she was
a mother like me she was sitting in
church between her two children two sons
and that’s when the stranger’s bullet
went into her head the gunman was the
ex-wife at the ex-husband of one of the
women in the church and he had come to
exact revenge on her by killing fellow
church members
and when the mother was shot in the head
she began to bleed profusely she bled
all over herself and she bled all over
her two children and miraculously she
survived this event but when she thinks
about that day she says that the thing
she feels is guilty she says a mother is
just not supposed to bleed on her child
and she’s right
my job what I do for a living is craft
communications to help move legislative
change so I’ve lived and worked in
Washington DC for about 15 years now as
a professional communicator focused on
making change I’ve worked on issues as
diverse as workers rights hunger and
poverty helping to make life better for
children families but in 2008 when these
incidents happened to my family I didn’t
even consider taking on gun violence as
an issue mostly because I’m a political
realist I work on issues that may be
hard but that can be one because there’s
too much change that can happen for me
to waste my time on something that’s
intractable and that’s where gun policy
was in 2008 and so I did what a person
does after traumatic incidents I went to
therapy I went to church we let our
church community love and nurture us I
prayed I went to therapy
I took meds all the things you need to
do to try to get back to clarity and
just a few weeks after this incident our
son was born and he was the perfect
place to pour our love and our concern
until December 14 2012 on that day I was
my son was a few days shy of 4 he was in
his preschool classroom and on that day
a man walked into an elementary school
in Connecticut he had taken his mother’s
gun and killed her with it and then he
killed six educators and twenty first
graders and that day was a day of
perfect clarity for me because as I
thought about the incident I can only
imagine that Sandy Hook classroom as my
child’s classroom and I could only
imagine myself as one of those parents
at the fire hook for our house waiting
in vain for a child that wasn’t going to
come home and so with what I now
recognize as part anxiety disorder I
became obsessed with figuring out how to
keep guns out of dangerous hands and so
I did the things I do I researched I
organized I gave money I communicated
working with groups trying to stop gun
violence and ultimately I ended up as a
volunteer with a group called moms
demand action for gun sense in America
and we’re a group a group of mothers
born out of the Sandy Hook tragedy who
realized that we could no longer do
nothing I helped the group with media
relations and social media and we do
several things to try to create a
culture of gun safety we pass laws we
work to pass laws at state houses that
strengthen gun laws and keep guns out of
dangerous hands we educate parents about
asking about guns in the home to try to
cut down on unintentional child
shootings and we talk about the risks of
teen suicide and how to recognize that
and then finally we work on culture
change because just as Mothers Against
Drunk Driving changed the societal norms
around drinking and driving we are
trying to change the norms in our
country and create a culture of gun
safety because the political calculation
was different after Sandy Hook suddenly
leaders from both sides of the aisle
were willing to talk with us to talk
about tentative steps that they could
take to try to curb this epidemic and
even after in April 2013 you Mike Lee
remember the national vote where we did
not pass background checks on all gun
sales so we went on to have went after
win and state houses and in-state voter
referendums and I want to tell you a
little bit about my relationship with
guns so my dad owns one my brother owns
a couple and so did my brother-in-law’s
I have cousins who are champion sport
shooters and avid hunters and I was
always a tomboy so I got to shoot guns a
little bit myself as a child I never had
anything alive except mistletoe which my
dad taught me how to shoot out of a tree
thanks dad but until I saw a gun pointed
at Amy
I enjoyed shooting them I have no
problem with a family owning one to
protect their home and the truth is I
don’t think guns are nearly as
contentious and issue as our politicians
are making them out to be here’s what I
believe there are some people like
convicted felons and domestic abusers
that shouldn’t have guns and we should
make it harder for them to get guns by
requiring a background check on every
cell there are some places that gun
shouldn’t be carried bars playgrounds
elementary schools we need to crack down
on illegal gun traffickers and finally
for people that own guns it’s important
to store them as safely as possible
which means unloaded
locked with the ammunition separate and
I will wager a guess that the majority
of you agree with me on these issues
because the majority of Americans do
when you talk about gun control it
conjures up this distant past there was
actually a time when we considered
getting rid of all handguns and
disarming law-abiding people today’s
conversation is about gun sense how do
we protect the rights of people to
sports shoot to hunt to protect their
families while at the same time making
it harder for dangerous people to get
guns there’s so much common ground on
this issue and so few conversations that
happen on that common ground I find that
this is an issue that people usually
there come from their heart and not from
their head and when people are talking
about guns they seem to be more
interested in being right than listening
that has to stop to bring about change
we’re gonna have to talk and listen and
we need to be clear about the problem
here it’s not my uncle Johnny and his
nephews skeet shooting on the weekends
there’s a gun lobby run by the gun
manufacturers that pays to have
politicians elected and then had them
pass gun laws that the majority of
Americans don’t agree with so while the
gun lobby is owning these politicians
they’re also scaring the rest of us to
death so that will buy more guns I read
an article recently in New York magazine
it was by a woman named Lisa Miller and
the magazine was about trying to find
common ground on guns and she ended her
peace with what I thought was a really
precise idea which is the conversation
we’re having here isn’t about guns the
conversation we’re having is about fear
and in the face of fear do you arm
yourself and hope that you’re at the
ready in case somebody comes to attack
you or do you try to make it harder for
that person to get guns in the first
place some of my favorite people do both
I am not willing to live in a world
where the good guys shoot it out with
the bad guys over my kids heads and so
even though I’m perfectly clear that the
reason I exist is to keep them safe I
don’t carry a gun
mostly because I’ve learned it’s more
likely to be used against us than we are
to use it against somebody trying to
hurt us that said I’m completely
committed to having conversations with
people who think differently than me I
want to hear the vision of a mother who
carries a gun to try to help keep their
kids safe I want to understand her
perspective I want her to understand
mine I want us to come to some common
ground and then push our legislators to
pass some gun same gun laws because I
have really good news the way gun
violence is in our country right now
doesn’t have to stay this way so let’s
be clear with each other and then let’s
be perfectly clear with our legislators
who have power to do something about it
let me be clear with you here’s what I
want I want you to start conversations
about gun violence and I want you to not
stop with just talking I want you to
join an organization I want you to give
time I want you to contact your
legislators on both sides of the aisle
call them email them show up at their
offices because even in this topsy-turvy
political climate nothing moves
legislators more than constituent action
and as I’ve said my vision is perfectly
clear
I’m here to make sure my kids outlive me
I’m here to make sure you outlive your
parents and that some day your kids outlive you too thank you