Protest with a New Spirit

Early morning yesterday my wife quietly asked if I was going to the march against gun violence. She was planning for travel and wanted to know if I was going to work because she would have to work me in to her route to the protest. 

I usually work about 3-4 hours every Saturday.  I depend on my Saturday time as a catch-up zone for work that got shunted to the side in the day to day struggle to keep up. To protest or to work, the decision did not come all at once. While contemplating what to do I thought about the kids who were behind the demonstration and their motivations.  Sitting with my coffee in hand I remembered what it meant to me to walk out of school on moratorium day as part of a nationwide protest the Vietnam war. Being part of civil action for a just cause back in the late 1960s motivated me to stay active in political issues the rest of my life.  I decided to go.

Personally, I know a thing or two about gun violence.  While I have never been shot I have had a gun pulled on me during a robbery.  I also tried to intervene when my father grabbed his shotgun to confront some of my friends over a long simmering dispute when I was in my teens.  In the former case the situation was based on just pure evil being amplified by access to a deadly weapon.  In the latter case a man I view as good just lost it and the gun amped up his power level versus 15 or 20 young turks.  I am happy my father didn’t shoot anyone.  I am happy I did not get shot.  But twice in my life the power of a gun has impacted me.  As a result, I don’t keep guns in my home.

When we got to the demonstration the crowd was solid in size but not overwhelming.  The voices that spoke were for the most part on the mark with what I believe.  Nobody was calling for an outright ban on ownership of guns. Shotguns and limited ammunition capacity rifles for sportspeople don’t bother me.  Hunting deer and other game is not an issue for me.  Keeping predators off a farm, again no big deal.  However unfettered access assault weapons and hand guns is a whole different kettle of fish. I clapped, I chanted, and I listened.  Gun waiting periods, background checks on each gun sale and limitation of access to weapons whose primary purpose is wounding or killing other people make sense to me.

In my state the person who put together the gathering of over a thousand people at the state capitol on a cold March Saturday morning was 14 years old.  While I stood there loads of teens walked by me.  Lots of young college students were there.  I would guess the crowd was a least 50% young.  Those of us who protested Vietnam, we are fading from the scene now.  Damn it is good to know that there is a younger generation who has the spark to act burning within it.