By Daniel Pearson
By noon each day in the United States, an average of six children have died from gunshot wounds.
Almost none of those children are victims of high-profile incidents such as last year's Columbine High School massacre. Most were shot in their own homes, the victims of unlocked, loaded guns being fired, or they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are also countless other gunshot tragedies involving adults taking place every day across the country.
Gun violence may not directly affect everyone in the U.S., but it has infiltrated nearly everyone's home via the nightly news. It's also there in action flicks, war movies, crime stories, Mafia dramas, popular songs, the Internet, books, magazines -- guns are as much a part of Americana as the Fourth of July, baseball and hot dogs.
Most countries don't allow their citizens to carry handguns. In England, police officers don't even holster a gun; they pursue the bad guys with billy clubs, and in Australia and Canada, the anti-gun movement is a strong political force. But in the U.S.A., our forefathers wrote the right to possess weapons right into the Constitution. It's law, and it's probably a safe bet to say that abolishing the right to bear arms is not a Constitutional amendment anyone will see anytime soon.
After all, it's not the weapon's fault that 4,223 young people (infants to 19-year-olds) were killed every two hours in 1997. It's not the gun's fault that a total 32,436 people were shot and killed in the U.S. that same year (only 981 of those shootings were accidental). And the gun didn't cause 17,566 people to commit suicide by shooting themselves -- or so the pro-gun argument goes -- but the point gun policy advocates, including those who organized last weekend's Million Mom March, are trying to make is that the people who pulled those triggers somehow had access to a gun. People who shouldn't have.
Last Sunday, 750,000 moms and their families descended upon Washington, D.C., to make more noise about licensing and registering handguns in one day than other gun-control advocates could collectively immediately after the high school shootings at Columbine and Springfield, Ore.
Million Mom Marchers pointed fingers at the National Rifle Association (NRA), saying the group buys politicians with "blood money," and that it chokes off the desires of ordinary people for some legislative relief against gun violence.
When people cried after an Albuquerque woman delivered a disturbing personal account of gun violence, they cried out to make their tears a "raging river of votes" to flood legislators out of office who dare not to listen, march organizers said. And across the country, thousands of smaller marches with like-minded people also rallied, asking the question: What do we have to do to save lives?
"We are demanding a comprehensive licensing program for all handgun buyers as well as other common sense measures, such as state of the art technology and child-proof guns," Million Mom March Founder Donna Dees-Thomases said. "Too many children, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles have died as a result of the inaction of our elected officials."
Dees-Thomases knew it was important to capitalize on the momentum behind the Million Mom March, and keep marching to the tune of the Million Mom March Foundation, which is already on the move. Unlike the blue-ribbon campaign following the Springfield, Ore. tragedy, Dees-Thomases -- a mother of two and a former CBS news communications director who worked alongside Dan Rather -- is going to personally see to it that this effort enacts change.
The new foundation is in the middle of surveying every elected officials in the U.S., from the Congress to city councilors, to learn their opinions on licensing and registering newly-bought guns. The Million Mom March Foundation's fiscal sponsor, the Bell Campaign, has created a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization to channel activists' energy into a sustained effort.
"Mothers and families around the country are committed to being active in support of sensible gun laws every day, not just on Mother's Day," Dees-Thomases said. "Our votes are our power and we will use that in force in the November elections. We will know where each elected official and (presidential) candidate stands on the issues that are important to us, and they will be held accountable."
The Million Moms Foundation doesn't want guns banned. It wants everyone who wants to buy one to first acquire a license, much as every state requires drivers to be licensed before taking their car, a potentially deadly weapon, out onto the open road.
But the NRA, which stages one of the nation's largest lobbying efforts, is a colossal adversary. The group is already outspoken about its feelings toward all those moms. On Mother's Day, the NRA posted a list of Million Mom supporters on its Web site in an effort to bolster solidarity within its ranks.
It also posted a video report on its site said those maternal beings who were marching up the Capital Mall were just "masquerading as moms." That same morning in a Washington Times interview, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre characterized licensing and registering of law-abiding gun owners as a "controlled burn of the Second Amendment."
There's even some resistance in Washington. An essay by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), also running in Sunday's Washington Times, said many of the gun control measures implemented in recent years are not working.
"The Clinton-Gore administration continues to talk more about new gun control measures, (like) gun buy-back programs and background checks at gun shows, rather than taking real action that would reduce crime and protect children," Sessions wrote.
Sessions advocates prosecuting in federal court convicted felons caught with guns and people who illegally purchase a firearm, and using government resources to trace the guns that are used in crimes back to their original sources. Many times, guns used by criminals are purchased on the street.
And the Second Amendment Sisters are going to fight off what they see as an attack on their right to bear arms, even though recent public opinion polls show the majority of Americans, especially women, support stricter gun control laws.
Regardless of any group's wishes, the unified mom front is marching. And since they can't send the government to its room, those politicians buzzing around Capitol Hill are in for the scolding of a lifetime.
Daniel Pearson can be reached at
danielpearson@mindspring.com
