Tipping Point: When the Someone Who Will Do Something Is You

Tipping Point: When the Someone Who Will Do Something Is You

I might describe my decision to get involved in gun violence prevention as a tipping “journey” rather than a single point. I’ve watched gun violence wreak havoc and devastation in the world around me for my entire life.

Growing up with active shooter drills

I have vivid memories of finding out about mass shootings many times throughout my adolescence.

I remember doing active shooter drills in middle school, where a teacher would go around and bang on classroom doors, yelling and begging to be let inside, to train us not to open the door for anyone while in lockdown. There were once credible shooting threats at my high school, and a few years later, at my university too.

I’ve had friends whose houses have been shot into, and I’ve witnessed incidents of gun violence myself.

So, why did I decide to get involved in gun violence prevention now? What changed?

“Someone will do something.” So I did.

I’ve learned recently that when people see bad things happen, most of them think, “someone will do something.”

I think many of us assume that someone else is better equipped to handle a crisis than we are, and think that that someone will be the one to step up and handle things. The problem is, while you stand by and think, “someone will do something,” everyone else does, too. That means that, a lot of the time, you have to step up and be that someone.

So I did.

Luck + network + resources = Pieces falling together

After the tragedies in Buffalo, NY (May 14), and Uvalde, TX (May 24) in 2022, I saw that March For Our Lives was going to hold marches around the country to call for federal action against gun violence. They were looking for locals to organize each march and I immediately signed up.

I spent the next week or so asking myself why I thought that was a good idea. I’d never organized anything like a march, and I had no idea what I was doing.

The first thing I did was reach out to San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention, to see if they might want to be involved. Lucky for me, they did. At that point, I didn’t have a plan for who else I might contact or what I would do next. It was really thanks to SD4GVP that I got access to the network and resources I needed to put together a big march.

I then reached out to staff at Waterfront Park (the location for the march), who put me in touch with others I’d need help from, including local law enforcement. In some ways, the help I got from others made me feel like all I did to organize was watch the pieces fall together.

Zero to march in four weeks

Even as everything came together, I was worried no one would actually show up for the march on June 11. I had been focused on figuring out the logistics and didn’t do much promotion. When city staff first asked me how many people I expected to attend, I said something like, “hopefully at least a hundred.”

Imagine my shock when I saw that over 1,500 people had RSVP’d online. Watching those people actually show up was surreal, and made me excited and beyond proud to see that so many people believed in what we were doing.

Although the march was more successful than I’d ever imagined, the work is far from over. I hope if you’re reading this, you’ve felt compelled to be the someone to step up and do something too. We can change things, but none of us can do it alone. Write and call your representatives. Vote. And don’t think that change only happens at the highest levels – you can have an impact by taking action in local elections and policy too.

The important thing is that we all take action together as we fight for a better future.

Kallie Funk is a 23-year-old, pre-med, post-baccalaureate student at University of California San Diego.

photo credit: Kallie Funk

Tipping Point: Innocent Children Killed

Tipping Point: Innocent Children Killed

I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing on the fateful day I reached my tipping point. But more importantly, I remember what I felt when I read that another mass shooting had taken place, just weeks, if not days, after the shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. This time it happened at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and this time, as a mother of two young kids, it hit too close to home.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed. Rage. Just complete and absolute rage followed by heartbreak for the victims’ families. Then frustrated with the fact that this could have been prevented if only common sense gun laws were passed.

Mass shootings are sadly a problem in this country and this country only. It’s simply too easy to purchase firearms and laws must be passed to make it harder to buy them.

Nineteen innocent children, looking forward to the start of summer vacation, were killed in their school. In their classroom — the last place a child should feel unsafe. No parent, absolutely no parent, should fear dropping off their kids at school because it may be the last time they see them alive.

It is incomprehensible that even when innocent children are killed, there is still so much debate concerning gun control. Schools don’t need armed teachers, armed guards or bulletproof doors and windows. If that were the case, so would movie theaters, grocery stores, churches and hospitals since those are all places where mass shootings have also taken place.

It’s a gun problem and if there is anything I can do, no matter how small, to help end gun violence, I will.

Sara Díaz de Sandi is a former journalist and currently full-time mom to two young kids.

Photo credit: Don Holloway

 

Tipping Point: Gun Violence Affects Everyone

Tipping Point: Gun Violence Affects Everyone

Most of the time, I feel safe. Some days, it feels like the entire world is dangerous. I feel sad, scared and hopeless. Other days – or weeks or months – time flies by without a hitch, and I feel safe again. 

Until a mass shooting occurs.

Then I remember that even a democratic country in a time of peace can be an unsafe place.

Seeing an unsafe world outside . . .

These days, I am generally a very even-keel person. I’ve struggled with anxiety, but it is mostly under control now. 

2012 was a particularly anxious year for me – and then came the Sandy Hook shootings in December, a harrowing end to an already difficult year. I remember watching the news coverage on TV, seeing the innocent faces of people taken unfairly and in the cruelest way, and just sobbing. I was nannying at the time, to fund my life in Vancouver as I did my master’s degree. I remember telling myself, “Justine, you’ve got two little kids sitting here who need you very much, and you need to turn the news off and put on a happy face for them.” 

But it felt like the world had shattered into something deeply unsafe. If that could happen there…it could happen anywhere. 2013 rolled around, and the Boston Marathon bombings and ensuing shootout shook the country in April. 

. . . and feeling it inside

The anxiety kept building, mostly feeling like a looming shadow, or a weird feeling I just couldn’t shake. 

I went about my daily routine (classes, nannying) feeling mostly fine but generally unsafe. This all culminated with a couple of debilitating panic attacks. With enough support, I got through that incredibly difficult time in my life and haven’t had a panic attack since. However, I still cannot shake the unsafe feeling that comes and goes like the seasons. Sometimes I go a few weeks or months without thinking about it, but every once in a while, life hands me a brutal reminder, and I feel fragile.

Lives can be taken – in a split second – in a grocery store, movie theater, place of worship, concert, bar, hospital or school. That is an absolutely terrifying thought. So terrifying that I can’t imagine I’m the only person who has ever looked around in a restaurant or grocery store to see where I could hide in the event that someone came in with a gun. 

Gun violence is never far away

But really, none of this is about me. I don’t say any of this to take away from the unfathomable pain experienced by people whose lives have been directly affected by gun violence. My sorrow, anger, and fear are nothing compared to what those people experience daily. 

But I’m still here, feeling this in my own way, and I know I’m not alone. Many of us are traumatized by what we see happening in this country. 

My tipping point, the cusp at which I decided to get directly involved, was the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, TX. I traveled to Washington, DC for the March for Our Lives 2018 after the Parkland shooting and was always very outspoken about my position on gun control. I convinced myself that it was enough. The spree of mass shootings in Spring 2022, including the deadliest school shooting in almost a decade, became irrefutable evidence that my actions were not enough. I vowed to not let my anger and sadness subside and turn into complacency, and to instead turn these feelings into motivation and action.  

You don’t have to experience it directly to feel unsafe. Gun violence affects all of us.

Justine Gersberg is a behavioral therapist working with children on the autism spectrum. Originally from San Diego, she ventured to Canada for a few years before returning.

photo credit: Moms Demand Action against gun violence” by Fibonacci Blue is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Tipping Point: Turning Thoughts and Prayers into Actions

Tipping Point: Turning Thoughts and Prayers into Actions

Years ago, I heard an interview with a divinity teacher who said, “You don’t pray for things to get better. You pray for the strength to make them better yourself.”

Like many people and hopefully all of them in some way, the recent gun violence has deeply impacted my emotions and worldview. I feel horrified for our future but clear-eyed that we are to blame for the present and in control of what happens next. A better ending is possible, linked to action and ours to write.

In response to the recent tragedies, I see the familiar pattern and hear the familiar ring of thoughts and prayers everywhere. I deeply appreciate and welcome those thoughts and prayers. At times, thoughts and prayers seem to be the last remnants of civilized society.

At least, I welcome those thoughts and prayers for a flash, as I grasp for anything positive to calm the burning in my eyes. They distract me from the cold reality that society can’t get our priorities straight. Instead, we let our children, brothers and sisters die needlessly while we argue.

Don’t stop at thoughts and prayers

But what if our gun violence has grown into an evil beyond our own understanding? What if it requires some supernatural help to understand? A prayer for understanding is one I can get behind.

However, understanding is always just the beginning. Like the Scriptures and major religious movements in the world, I recognize that thoughts and prayers are essential to the mental make-up and motivations of a person who wants take action to improve their world. To improve the world.

Thoughts and prayers are a direct communication to ask for the strength to overcome problems that seem otherworldly. But…more than anything, thoughts and prayers are a call to action. A sincere, and at times desperate, call for somebody or something to take action and help.

Turn them into actions

In response to the recent tragedies and gun violence in Buffalo, Uvalde and other cities across the U.S.A., my own thoughts and prayers are sharply focused on action. My action has been to get involved and my goal is to get others involved.

I’m asking anyone who reads this to think about how we got here, to pray for guidance and to take action to reduce gun violence. I’m asking anyone who reads this to help me write a different future. Write your congressional representative. Write your congregation. Write your newspapers. Write your Senators. Write everyone and anyone you can, so we can all get moving in the same direction.

Please join me in thoughts and prayers, then action. Help me write a better future with no gun violence so we can focus our thoughts and prayers on thanks and grace instead of pain and grief.

Troy DeBraal is a technology entrepreneur in the San Diego area.