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Million mom march, 2001

Marching with a Mother’s Touch By Abby Joslin Letteri An essay on the Million Mom March, Sacramento, California, Mother’s Day, 2001 Back in the 1960s, when I was just a kid, I joined my parents on a couple of protest marches. I attended a candlelight vigil after the death of Martin Luther King, an open housing March, and a couple of Vietnam War protests. We were middle-class folks exercising our right to free assembly in a college town; the protests were mostly infused with civility. Nonetheless, there was always heavy police presence, officers decked out in full riot gear. Plain-clothed FBI agents snapped my photograph more than once. The air crackled with a hint of danger. I loved it. This years Million Mom March in California was quite different than my childhood memories. Hundreds of Bay Area families rode on plush, well-appointed Amtrak trains to Sacramento for the rally. The swell Moms from Santa Clara County handed out dozens of muffins. Smiling teen-agers walked through the aisles collecting trash. We greeted, chatted, compared notes and used the 2-plus hour trip to write letters to our senators in support of the McCain-Lieberman gun safety bill. When we arrived in Sacramento, local Moms greeted us with warmth, smiles and pink carnations. We marched the 9 blocks to the capitol building, our families fanned out along the route, kids skipping, babies sleeping in strollers, and we mostly obeyed all the traffic signals and stayed on the sidewalk. The West lawn of the capitol was lively and fun. Our kids enjoyed the big, inflated bouncy tent, had their faces painted with colorful flowers and masks, and danced on the lawn to the infectious groove of a Zydeco band. Marchers strolled from table to table. We picked up literature, exchanged ideas for grassroots organizing and discussed serious solutions to the growing epidemic of gun violence in America. Nearly every table offered a homemade treat and at least one innovative idea for bringing communities together around the core issues of gun control and violence prevention. San Franciscans talked about developing a Ring of Safety for the Bay Area: a cooperative effort by neighboring counties to develop common gun ordinances and public safety programs to deter illegal gun possession and reduce the availability and access to illegal and unsafe guns. Teen activists from Orange County talked about their efforts to mobilize their peers and make guns unacceptable to youth. Others groups offered educational materials and counseling to help in the support of survivors of gun trauma. Representatives from several professional groups Physicians for a Violence Free Society and Legal Community Against Violence, among others talked about their programs and services. A Mom from Ventura county offered a unique symbol that Million Moms around the nation can adopt: like the red AIDS ribbon, Holly has created a string of 10 pink beads one for each child whose life is cut short by guns every day in America. The formal program began with the national anthem. Ten Californians who have lost loved ones to gun violence rang a bell in remembrance. Later in the program, singer Lorraine Taylor who lost twin sons to gun violence sang of her enduring faith. Her courage is nothing short of a miracle. A series of speakers addressed the many facets of the gun control movement. California Assembly Majority Leader Kevin Shelley recalled the 1993 massacre at 101 California Street in San Francisco, and called for passage of his no-nonsense gun safety licensing and registration bill, AB 35. Sayre Weaver, a lawyer with Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV) deconstructed the NRA's second amendment argument, clearly demonstrating what the nations courts have long interpreted: that owning firearms is a privilege, not a constitutional right. Several speakers posed the rhetorical question: if guns kill more people than cars, and we require comprehensive safety licensing to drive cars, why don't we have the same for guns? Our detractors want to the Million Moms to be seen as extremists. The night before the rally, a friend downloaded some propaganda from the web that called for infiltrators to interrupt the Million Mom March by provoking us into anger and thereby exposing us for the lunatics they are sure we are. During the day, I saw only one or two of these interlopers polite young men who carried small signs or flags with an opposing point of view, walking through the middle of our rally. We didn't get angry or try to block their passage. In fact, we simply tolerated their presence respectfully. At one point, a smiling grandmother in a Million Mom t-shirt offered one of the young men a pink carnation. He looked perplexed, accepted the gift and moved off to the far edge of the crowd. The gun lobby and even the mainstream media seem hell-bent on portraying gun control as a movement that has lost momentum. I can say with certainly, from where I sat, it sure looked like a movement a movement of sensible, down-to-earth mothers and others who love our children more than the NRA loves its guns. There was police presence at the Million Mom March in Sacramento, but the CHP officers on duty seemed relaxed and happy. They strolled the lawn in their crisply starched shirts, greeting children as they passed. I understand better now why I loved the protest rallies of my youth. Even as a child, I was moved by the sense of urgency in grassroots social action. But most of all, I felt that my presence was important, that my voice mattered. I can think of no more important lesson for a child to learn. My little daughter, not quite 3, is too young yet to understand why we went to the Million Mom March. She had a lot of fun, though, and I suspect she will remember the day for a long time. During the rally, she fell asleep on our picnic blanket. As I gazed at her quiet, sun-flushed face, I could hardly believe the depth of grief suffered by the mothers surrounding me on the lawn, those who have lost their children to guns. Tragedies of this proportion should never happen, but they do. 84 times a day, 30,708 times a year. For the children, and for our future, we must keep marching. © Abby Joslin Letteri Abby Joslin Letteri is a mother, writer and activist. In a previous life she was Director of Marketing at a computer animation studio in Silicon Valley. She lives with her family in San Francisco. Despite the insanely high cost of living in the Bay Area, she can think of no better place on earth to make her home

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