I hate guns. I have always hated guns.
There were no hunters in my family and the only people I knew who owned guns were police officers and cowboys on TV. I did some target practice at summer camp in Wisconsin, but that was about it for me. Other than a water pistol fight at a pool party.
Even as a high school teacher at some pretty rough inner-city schools in Chicago, I never had to practice for a live shooter.
As a parent of three adult children who grew up in bucolic Santa Barbara without school shooters, and now with two grandchildren, I cannot imagine dropping them off at school and wondering if their lives might be taken from them. It’s unfathomable.
On March 24, my 25-year-old daughter and I stood with hundreds of demonstrators in De la Guerra Plaza as part of the March for Our Lives. Among the speakers were educators, parents, a woman who lost a friend from Carpinteria in the Las Vegas massacre, a Black Lives Matter representative, a San Marcos High School student, and a veteran of the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars.
They all spoke of heartbreaking sadness but with strong resolve — almost with a tinge of anger pushing back on gun violence in our schools.
State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, gave a fiery speech about how our generation has failed young people by not enacting common-sense gun control, even as we forced the end of the Vietnam War.
“I hope that you will take this moment to create a movement that punishes the NRA (National Rifle Association) and political backers of ‘assault’ weapons to keep their base,” she said.
Jackson recently introduced legislation that would allow 16 year olds to pre-register to vote.
“The ballot box and these millennials will change the world,” she said.
While at the University of Arizona, my daughter took a race relations course in which she learned from her classmates about bigotry and racial and sexual profiling. It changed her life, and now she understands more about the world and color blindness.
While in Tucson, she also had been inspired to participate with Planned Parenthood in the 2017 Women’s March protesting President Donald Trump — while I was marching with my Santa Barbara sisters at the same time. A year later, we linked arms for the March for Our lives.
I encourage all parents to participate in their children’s lives and help them to feel empowered by accompanying them not just to restaurants, vacations, rock concerts and movies, but to peaceful demonstrations.
Letting them be inspired by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and other students and peers who have lost their friends to gun violence, can enable them to see that their voice counts and so will their votes at the next election.
— Judy Foreman is a Noozhawk columnist and longtime local writer and lifestyles observer. She can be contacted at judy.foreman@noozhawk.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.