No days off in the fight against gun violence
As the season’s first snowfall barreled toward Connecticut earlier this month, the notices of closures and delays started crawling across television screens. With a forecast of a half-foot and more of snow, residents were understandably cautious.
But when people asked the Rev. Henry Brown, executive director of Mothers United Against Violence, if his fundraising dinner scheduled during the worst of the storm would be canceled, he seemed perplexed.
Canceled? Why?
And so the Mothers United fundraiser went on. About 200 people attended — a third of the people who’d planned to come — because a little bad weather will not interrupt them in their mission.
Members of this group have already braved the worst. They’ve lost sons, daughters and other loved ones to gun violence. Instead of turning inward, they’ve reached out. With multiple vigils, street-corner protests, testimony at legislative hearings and visits to homes raw with mourning the dead, the Mothers United have been as invincible as they need to be for the last 15 years. Before Parkland, before Tree of Life, before Sandy Hook, they have been vigilant, born of a need to cry “enough” long before it was a hashtag on Twitter.
Led by the unassuming Henrietta Beckman, whose 20-year-old son was shot dead in Hartford in 2002, Mothers United works for policy change while members act as the boots on the ground, offering comfort to families thrust into grief by gun violence. When another child is lost to a bullet, Brown, himself a victim of gun violence, goes to the hospital and asks if the family would like the support of Mothers United, Beckman said. If they say yes — and most do — they are then guided by others who’ve been where they are now. Sometimes it’s a hug, and sometimes it’s a quiet presence as families find their way. Members of Mothers United have counseled some 400 families since they started, said Beckman.
The fundraiser included speakers with a personal acquaintance with violence. There was Aswad Thomas, a standout basketball player who was shot on Albany Avenue — twice — and now works for Alliance for Safety and Justice, and Randy Beckman, the grandson of Henrietta. Beckman, a high school graduate who, his grandmother hopes, is heading for college, was a baby when his father was killed in Hartford. Beckman said to other survivors, “To all the youth out there who lost someone — especially a dad, not growing up with your dad or a father figure — don’t look out for the wrong way. There’s always a better way.”
“They always seem to manage a perfect balance of sharing raw and heartbreaking pain with hope and a celebration of strength,” said Sarah A. Raskin, Trinity College psychology and neuroscience professor, who is on the board of CT Against Gun Violence. “You leave feeling ready to keep going and keep fighting for change despite the unbelievable grief that’s been shared.”
For Thomas, the members of Mothers United were a lifeline. He said no one else reached out to his family after he was shot in 2009 by a stranger in a Hartford convenience store parking lot for reasons that still aren’t clear. Mothers like Henrietta Beckman knew his grief, and the impact of gun violence on a family. Thomas also lost a best friend at age 10, and his father, oldest brother and first cousin have all been shot. The first cousin is paralyzed from his wounds. Thomas went on to earn a master’s degree in social work.
In Connecticut, legislators reacted after the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings with some of the nation’s most stringent gun legislation. Since then, Connecticut has consistently ranked among states with a reduced rate of gun deaths. Sensible gun legislation works, but we can always do more. We can, as suggested by CT Against Gun Violence for the upcoming legislative session, make safe gun storage a law. And we can regulate socalled “ghost guns,” firearms that are the products of do-it-yourself kits, which are untraceable and require no background check.
Mothers United will stand vigilant. They always do. But it takes policy and steelwilled legislators to help stop a bullet.