What kind of “hero” can change truly our country’s conversation about gun violence? To find out, let’s start by changing our own cultural consciousness about a woman’s place in society.
I ask my first-grader how her school day was. It’s the same question I ask her every day. But this time, instead of telling me about her reading group, her friends or the adventures of her class pet – a bunny rabbit – she shares words that make me shiver.
“Mommy, we had to turn out the lights, and sit very, very quietly in the dark, to hide from the bad people,” she says in her not-quite babyish, but far from grownup voice. “I was good, mommy. I was very quiet—I didn’t move.”
I think I hid my reaction, but tears sprang to my eyes as I took in the matter-of-fact way she describes a lockdown drill, de rigueur for schools since Sandy Hook.
I can’t escape it. This is the new normal. And it makes me nauseous.
Where I grew up with fire safety drills, my daughter is growing up in a world that I no longer recognize– where I have to look away from the evening news because it is so depressing. So filled with the darkness of the human condition. So filled with guns and the destruction they cause.
A toddler kills his grandmother with a gun. A preschooler shoots his dad in the car, with a gun. Mass shootings everywhere a mother’s mind can reach. My mind doesn’t want to reach there, but I have no choice. I have to stay grounded in reality, to help my child navigate this new world.
Media pundits like Nicholas Kristoff have provided some remedies—“what we need is an evidence-based public health approach— the same model we use to reduce deaths from other potentially dangerous things around us, from swimming pools to cigarettes,” he writes in a a brilliant article in The New York Times, where he suggests we require the same standards of guns that we do of cars, which has reduced auto fatality rates by 95 percent. “We’re not going to eliminate guns in America, so we need to figure out how to coexist with them,” Kristoff writes.
So what about our elected officials? Can they help? Lyrics from Bonnie Tyler’s song from the movies Footloose and Shrek, “Holding Out for a Hero,” runs through my mind:
“Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the Gods?
Where’s the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?”
Here are our odds. Since 1970, more Americans have died from gun violence than died in all U.S. wars since the American Revolution. The problem is our mostly-male politicians, in staggering numbers have turned a deaf ear, ignoring the fervent pleas of their constituents. They are afraid of being our heros–afraid of turning the status quo on its ear by taking on the NRA.
“Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn
And I dream of what I need
I need a hero, I’m holding out for a hero
‘Til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight”
The other day, I was watching the Democratic debate and of all the candidates, one, just one, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first to take a stance on gun violence.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns?
CLINTON: No, not at all. I think that we have to look at the fact that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long and it’s time the entire country stood up against the NRA.
One mother can dream. Many mothers banded together in a common cause can make the world we want our children to grow up in a reality.
Hillary amongst deafening applause had my rapt attention as she continued speaking about her support of background checks, and the Brady Bill—which since passing has helped prevent more than two million prohibited purchases. Unlike Sanders, she is against the immunity provision, which does not hold gun manufacturers culpable for selling the guns.
She ended her well-informed, passionate response with this statement, “Everyone else has to be accountable, but not the gun manufacturers. And we need to stand up and say: Enough of that. We’re not going to let it continue.
We’re not going to let it continue. Those words are music to my ears.
“I need a hero, I’m holding out for a hero
‘Til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life”
The day of the lockdown, I received this email from our school.
“Earlier today we conducted a Shelter in Place/LockDown Drill. Our school conducts these drills periodically as part of our regularly-required emergency systems preparation.
Today’s drill was smooth and uneventful. On behalf of our faculty and staff I thank you for your understanding of and support for these procedures.”
“Smooth and uneventful.” Oh, what a wonderful world that would be. Taking on the NRA and the gun manufacturer’s and holding them accountable to standards and protections would be a start.
“Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There’s someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder
And rising with the heat
It’s gonna take a Superman
To sweep me off my feet”
I don’t need Superman; I need someone who understands my concerns and fears, not some macho stud swooping in to think for me. (Like that’s worked so well throughout history.)
Perhaps the answer to a safer future for our children doesn’t lie in a man, but in the heart and brilliant mind of a woman–a mother, a grandmother, a lawyer, and an advocate for children. Someone who is weathered and wiser, but not beaten down by the experiences, successes and failures of her life?
Can we turn the zeitgeist upside down and change our own cultural consciousness about a woman’s place in society? We need to try.
“I need a hero, I’m holding out for a hero
‘Til the end of the night”
One mother can dream. Many mothers banded together in a common cause can make the world we want our children to grow up in a reality.
That’s why this time around I’m holding out for a heroine, not a hero, who can take on the NRA.
I’m holding out for Hillary.
Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning journalist, author and writing coach. She is a contributor to the forthcoming anthology Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox (Nov. 2015). Her writing appears in The Washington Post, Brain, Child, Redbook, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping and more. She is on Facebook and Twitter.