Last Week the NC Legislature Eliminated Permits and Background Checks for Handguns

“This meat is DELICIOUS.  It’s a little hard to chew, though.”  Jean got to earth a red-meat carnivore, and an honest food critic.  “The beans, though, Mom.  They don’t have that usual BOOM.”  She always refers to my black beans on the BOOM scale.  “They need the BOOM.”   This batch is apparently under-salted and under-spiced.  The bean Boom scale cracks me up, in a world where I am otherwise jittery with the word. 

“Mom, are there carrot trees?” She picks at the salad.

“No, carrots are roots underground.  I’ll show you how I cut the tops off.”

“Mom —-“

“What, baby?”

“Nevermind.”

“No, tell me."

“I said NEVERMIND,” she insists.

Nevermind.  That’s Jean’s word for something in mind that’s hard to talk about.

She is sleepy on the way to school the next morning, looking out from tiny, newly shorn bangs.  “Mom, did you eat enough dinner?”

“What makes you say that?” 

“Just tell me.  Did you get enough to eat last night?”

 “I got plenty,” I nod without question.  I gave her the best part of the meat, but I certainly had enough.

“You’re not just giving me the food and not getting enough for yourself?”

“No.  Not at all.”  I wonder where this is coming from.  She worries about me, about money, about things being difficult.  Her childish assessment is right and wrong in ways she doesn’t understand.  I venture to guess my own grownup assessment has parallel flaws.  “You know, when you don’t want to tell me something and you say, Nevermind.  It’s important to talk about things that are hard to talk about.”  

She looks away from my eyes in the rearview mirror.  

“My job is to protect you, and ME.  Sometimes kids your age think they have to protect their parents.  Which is an easy mistake to make.  But I’m here to take care of us both.  That’s my job. You don’t have to protect me.”

“Ok.” she nods.

“Can I have all your gems?”

“No.” she smiles. 

I walk her up the spring-hewn side street on the sidewalk to school.  The cherry tree is blooming early, unseasonably.  Jean wears purple knee socks, neon pink shoes and two tiny ponytails and her backpack is covered in the keychains she collects.  We trade good words with the crossing guard, hug teachers, discuss the strange, early spring and make sure everyone knows April is Jean’s birthday.  I kiss her goodbye; she does not look back.

Nearly every day of kindergarten and first grade, we have made this walk. Everyday, after returning to my car, I talk to my mom on the way home from the school in the town where I grew up.  Once home, I will pour a second cup of coffee and hurl myself into my work.  But the space between the kiss goodbye and the twenty concrete squares of pavement back to my car is the scariest part of my day.  I do my best to not allow a single thought into my head about how I cannot protect anyone.  I do not allow thoughts of leaving the country or where would one even go to avoid the man-made hurt, the unfathomable parts of this mixed up world which we are all complicit by simple participation, by being.  I do not think of how impossible it appears to heal the world.  I do not think of the short breadth of my little life.  Over and over and over, I say to myself,  I have once again walked my daughter to school and told her I loved her.  I have once again walked my daughter to school and told her that I love her.  I do not allow any room for the thought that would obliterate me.  I do not allow it in.  I will not allow it in.   

I take the concrete in a silent, fierce repeat.  My heart races but I ignore it. Never mind.  Never mind.  NEVER MIND.  Never, never, NEVER, NEVER.   

I can hardly pray it.  Never never never mind. 

In the past few weeks, code yellows have gone out numerous times in the Wake County School system where we live.  The scene above is something I wrote that I dared not finish because I could not allow the thoughts into the air, into the world.   Never mind zombies, vampires, poverty, orphanages —  what need have we for horror movies in the age of school shootings?   I’ve been working on another piece, an album, for an embarrassing number of years, in which found objects from the asylum in my hometown, now reconstituted as our central park, are an entry point for exploring modernity and madness, asking questions about what sanity is.  Last Thursday evening, the news reminded me exactly why I began that album.

Last Thursday, our North Carolina Republican Legislators along with three Democrats made sure that we are far less safe by eliminating permitting and background checks for handguns in NC.  

Three days after a deadly school shooting in Nashville, TN, in a year tallying 130 mass shootings in only 88 days, the NC House voted along party lines– without allowing for debate – to override the Governor’s veto and do away with laws enforcing permits and background checks for handguns in North Carolina.  Three Democrat members of the House were missing– Legislator Cecil Brockman of Guilford County, Legislator Tricia Cotham of Mecklenburg County and Legislator Michael Wray of Northampton County.  In contrast, Legislator Marvin Lucas, 81, with a leg broken in three places delayed his surgery so as not to miss the vote and cast his voice against the bill on behalf of common sense gun laws.  The vote was scheduled two days in advance.  This bill would not have passed if the three Democrats had shown up to vote.  

“Following this veto overrule, the state will create a loophole between state and federal gun laws in which a person would be able to purchase handguns at gun shows or from strangers they meet online with no background check, and no questions asked.” -Moms Demand Action.   

Moms Demand Action provided the best explanation of what happened that I could find.  You can read their entire condemnation here.  Their news page is a terrifying chronicle of gun violence and gun politics in America.  The North Carolina coverage of this turn of events took up maybe a minute of the local tv news.  The AP covered it, but it was not an above the fold story;  I found it because I went looking for it.  Ironically, in the article, two of the Democratic lawmakers absent from the vote, Brockman and Cotham, claimed they were too sick to get to the vote.   Also telling, Wray and Cotham both received key committee chairmanships this year from the Republicans.

Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teens in North Carolina and in the United States. 

It’s hard to keep up with everything awful these days.  Polarization, disasters, absurdities, war, wrongs all around us.  This story really hit me particularly hard and close to home, a sort of culminating blow that knocked me flat unexpectedly.  I felt, as Jean would say, lost in the Forever Forest.  I’ve considered what positive action to take, and I’ve also just cried some.  I’ve come up without answers and with only hard questions.  Is this where I am supposed to say Thomas Jefferson wasn’t talking about magazines and assault rifles?  Is this where I say seatbelts and driver’s licenses are very productive for society?  Is this where I suggest you call your legislators?  What good does it do?  Is this where you plan to learn to live with the panic attack of dropping your kid off at school, shutting your brain off without stepping on cracks on the sidewalk back to your car in rhythm. Another day you walked her to school and told her you loved her.  Another day, another prayer.  Good God.  Never mind. Never mind.  Never mind.  Never mind.

That we have learned to live with this is terrifying. 

 If you have answers, if you know what to do other than press on with all the kindness you can find, let me know.   I did find Moms Demand Action.   On their site, you can support their work, volunteer, and get educated about what’s happening in your state and everyday in our country. 

Love tift