Real Legacy May Be Guns’ New Stigma

As the nation wakes up this morning from a day of stirring speeches and wrenching stories about guns and their carnage, the question at hand is this: What, if anything, did the Million Mom March achieve?

For all the powerful images of mothers amassing on the National Mall, of placards bearing the faces of innocent victims, of energy shared by throngs of women gathered across the nation on Mother’s Day for a common cause, what happened Sunday is probably less telling than what happens next.

The first test of whether this event will turn a page in the gun debate could come as early as Nov. 7. If politicians perceive they are in danger of losing office because of their views on firearms, then they will be spurred to break the logjam that has kept most gun safety legislation from passing.

“That’s the challenge. If it’s just another nice weekend in the summer weather on the mall, then we have all wasted our time,” said former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, who is running for her old seat in Torrance, a classic suburban district where the gun issue could swing votes.

But this is as much a social movement as a political one. Few expect legislation requiring gun registration or safety locks--two goals of the march--to pass any time soon. Yet the real legacy of Sunday’s march may be a growing stigmatization of firearms that did not exist before--a sense that guns could go the way of cigarettes and alcohol as vices that, when used irresponsibly, are a badge of ignorance.

Sunday may have marked the beginning of a campaign similar to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which not only forged tougher laws but, in the minds of many, changed the way drinking and driving were viewed by society as a whole.

“MADD obviously resulted in stronger punishment, but it also created a social stigma attached to drinking and driving that led to some practical private solutions like designated drivers,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic consultant.

Opponents were quick to dismiss the impact of the Million Mom March, which drew hundreds of thousands in the largest gun control rally to date.

“Thousands of liberals marching for gun control. Gee, what a surprise,” said Bill Kristol, publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard.

In a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, women of all age groups said they supported gun restrictions 67% to 28%, compared with 57% of adults overall. The poll of 1,303 people conducted May 2-6 had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Still, the march seemed to solidify women from all walks--urban, suburban, professional, stay-at-home, black, white, Latina--helping them find their voices not only in Washington, but in their neighborhoods. A growing number said they now make sure a home is gun-free before allowing their children to play there, a question that might have been considered rude just a few months ago. “The march was a perfect vehicle for me to say, yes, I am concerned about guns and if you have a gun in your home, I want to know about it,” said Amber Raskin, who traveled from Valencia with her 1-year-old daughter, Samantha. “Let people keep their guns locked up and feel embarrassed about it.”

An evolving trend such as that can be seen as a victory in the public relations war against firearms, putting gun owners in the position of defending and explaining, not unlike smokers when they were banished to special rooms and sidewalks.

“In school you know which families have firearms in the house. The word gets around: ‘Alexander’s parents have guns,’ ” said Karen Elliott, a Virginia mother of two.

The politics surrounding guns has always been about intensity: The National Rifle Assn. is famously tenacious, hammering relentlessly to protect gun owners, who turned out for a small but vocal counter-protest Sunday. Gun control advocates, by contrast, tend to rise up in ire, then recede in lassitude as the latest shocking gun crime fades from the headlines.

For many of the women who came, Sunday was their first protest march, a sign that the movement had coaxed some would-be activists out of the closet.

“This is the first time something has captured me, that in my gut I know is wrong,” said Julia Overton of Arlington, Va., who left her 9-year-old daughter at home while she stood on the mall.

Whether this would be the birth of a significant social movement or another burst of anger in a long battle over guns is in dispute. There were families, though fewer of them, who drove just as far to spend their Mother’s Day fighting for the unrestricted right to own a gun.

“I’m a mother too, and I would have loved to spend the day with my children, but this is about our 2nd Amendment right,” said Lynette Ames of Dallas, who bought a .38-caliber revolver with her husband only after it appeared that the Columbine High School shooting might lead to stricter gun laws. She can now hit a 50-cent piece at 10 yards, and her intensity serves as a reminder that the debate is not only cultural and regional, but emotional on both sides.

Still, the Million Mom March had left its footprint on the gun debate even before the protesters took their first steps Sunday. The NRA recently retooled its message to address children’s safety, and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas backed away from earlier skepticism to announce a plan to pass out free trigger locks in his state.

The national consciousness has been heightened since the Columbine massacre. Although gun control has been an issue since Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968, it has only lately involved children in the politically sensitive suburbs. That alone gave mothers special standing to speak Sunday, and the symbolism was powerful--women giving up breakfast in bed or a chance to read the paper in the yard to stand in the hot sun too far from the stage to see and listen to a sound system that wasn’t audible.

“I could have had the champagne brunch and I could have had the roses, but I didn’t think twice about it,” said Deborah Sonnenfeldt, 42, of Maryland. “This issue won’t go away. It can’t. There will always be another shooting. It could be Monday morning or it could be six months from now. But there will always be another one.”