“Dear President Obama... Gunsare really easy to get and people think they need them to protect themselves,but most times they’re showing off and making more problems and adding to theviolence... 7 people are too many to lose and I don’t want to see anotherone of my friends, or even myself gone. We need a change.”
In mid-July, students atChildren’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® summer enrichment sites across thecountry participated in a National Day of Action. The FreedomSchools program seeks to empower children to know that they are not just citizensin waiting. We want them to grow upknowing that they can and must make a difference in their homes, schools,communities, nation, and world. Many wroteletters this summer to President Obama, members of Congress, and localofficials sharing their beliefs about gun laws and personal experiences withgun violence. Some were inspired by the March 2013 Washington Post Magazine article “What’s Your Number?” which askedreaders how many people they knew who had been killed or injured by guns. Theyouths who wrote the letters above and below had more experience than most.They are all boys between 15 and 20 years old who attend the Maya AngelouAcademy at the New Beginnings Youth Development Center just outside Washington,D.C., one of six juvenile justice facilities across the country that havejoined colleges, community groups, faith networks, public schools,municipalities, and dozens of other organizations hosting Freedom Schools sites.
“Dear President Obama... I have lost 20 ormore people to gun violence... I have seen one of my best friends get shotand killed in my face. What really hurt was I had to tell his mother he wasdead. To this day his murder is unsolved and I honestly feel it will never besolved. But something needs to give; either stricter gun policy or more motherswill have to go through what my friend’s mother went through.”
“Dear President Obama... I have lost 23friends and family to gun violence, some killed by police, some killed by straybullets, and some over beefs. The thing I want to change about gun violence isfor everybody to not only put down their guns, but to come together as one... Not only is it a time for change, but it’s time for a truce. We are fightinga war in another country, but we are at war right here in our homeland.”
“Dear President Obama... I amwriting this letter to you because the longer people have access to illegalfirearms, there will be more deaths to come ... The more people suffer inpoverty, the more there will be chaos and violence ... It has to stop now! Weall have to come as one. These young brothers are hypnotized by negativity.Help these young brothers, President Obama.”
Many of the boys at NewBeginnings come from high-poverty neighborhoods saturated with gun violence. Astheir Freedom Schools sitecoordinator Chelsea Kirk says, “Gun violence is not just something we talkabout lightly at the Academy; in fact gun violence and the effects of gunviolence are very real in the lives of our scholars . . . In addition to theletters, our scholars recorded the total number of people they have lost to gunviolence in their lives. The numbers speak for themselves.”
In two dozen letters their litanywent on: “My cousin died from a gun.” “My friend got killed.” “My uncle gotshot.” “My little brother got shot.” Aneven sadder message quietly emerged in some of the letters: while most wereclear about the terrible impact of guns on their friends and families, severalof the boys now believed that getting their own gun was the only way they couldmake themselves feel safer. One student who said he was at New Beginnings becauseof weapons charges explained his feelings this way: “I was carrying my gunbecause I had to protect myself from being shot. I’m a very smart young man,you can ask my teachers, my friends, and my family, and I plan to have a greatfuture. But, first I must make it through the present.”
These students are a very smallexample but too many children across the country feel the same way. In a nationwith 315 million people and 310 million guns, urban neighborhoods are not theonly communities overflowing with guns and teenagers in inner-city D.C. are notthe only children who believe there are so many guns in our country they mightneed one too in order to survive. And what message did it give these students whenTrayvon Martin, a teenager who looked a lot like them and was not carrying a gun, was followed, shot,and killed by an adult while doing nothing wrong and the adult was set free?
Unless we want to give up andagree that the only way to survive our nation’s gun violence crisis is forevery adult, teenager, and child in America to own a gun, we need to provide commonsense solutions like universal background checks and a ban on high capacityammunition magazines -- now. Ourchildren are afraid for their friends, their families, and themselves. They know something needs to change. Butthey can’t get there without us -- and they certainly can’t get there by armingthemselves with still more guns.