It started as just another text message, but after reading it I knew another shooting had occurred. It’s common for me to receive text messages from friends and family when mass shootings occur. People are trying to warn or comfort me. Probably both.
I went into my news app to see what I could find. No mass shooting is easy for me to process but some are worse than others, depending on the death count, the ages of the victims, and how closely the shooting resembles my own.
I immediately found a few articles, but the details seemed fuzzy, as they often are in those first moments. But it was clear this was an elementary school and that children were dead - possibly many children.
Even though I didn’t give up my career for it at the time, I became activated to advocate for gun safety in 2012 after witnessing the slaughter of innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary. Like nearly every other parent in America, I couldn’t comprehend or accept the world my children were inheriting.
My work fighting for gun safety began after that shooting and only intensified after my own. Nothing makes me angrier than inaction in the face of mass violence in schools. NOTHING. If an elected official is willing to do nothing in these moments, they are completely lacking in humanity, integrity, and responsibility.
So, as I scanned the news articles a familiar feeling swept over me: total and utter lack of control. As parents we are tasked with protecting our children and in moments like this, parents have very little ability to prevent harm. I collapsed into a squat, in my skirt suit outside of my daughter’s practice facility and began to weep. How did we let this happen again?!?! What is wrong with us?!?!
All of this set off another cycle of interviews from me and increased activism from everyday Americans. It’s hard to describe what the cycle does to me, but it isn’t healthy. I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to seize the moment by doing all the interviews, repeating the calls to action from all the channels, and personally lobbying every lawmaker who has ever shown me an ounce of compassion or interest in solving the problem.
I remember one question during an interview that infuriated me. The reporter asked, “Can you tell us what it was like for these children?”. Doing interviews in rapid succession leads to increased passion and sound volume on my part. By the time I got to this question I answered with absolutely no restraint. I said, “No, I cannot tell you what it was like. I was a 37-year-old woman when I walked into a mass shooting. While no one is prepared for that, at least I was an adult. These precious children were left alone to defend themselves against the unthinkable. There is nothing in 10 short years of life that would prepare you to be shot apart by a semi-automatic rifle!”. I WAS SO ANGRY.
Luckily the interviews died down, like they always do, but instead of the Memorial Day weekend putting a damper on activism, it did the opposite. I remember logging back into online activity that next week and thinking, “This feels different. People aren’t letting up!”
As a survivor of gun violence, I have hope that every shooting will be the catalyst for legislative change in D.C., or for Kentucky and Ohio. However, I’ve seen enough cycles to recognize when activism begins to wane. I watched all the influencers sharing similar content, activism tips for contacting lawmakers. Jennifer Garner showing us how to make use of downtime (while the cookies bake) to contact your lawmakers. It was spectacular!
This work can feel lonely. I often have a hard time understanding why everyone isn’t as passionate as me. Why everyone can’t sustain their activism like me. But here I was with everyone around me fighting like hell. It felt unbelievably good.
At this same time our team began to hear rumblings of bipartisan interest for a gun safety deal. Our team has good relationships with U.S. Senators, Representatives, and staff on both sides of the political aisle, and so we reached out for more information. One of my very favorite staffers shared that it was true. A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators was working in good faith to find common ground. He assured me that if anyone could do it, it would be this team.
I’d been here before. It was hard to be entirely optimistic. I’ll never forget the ~48 hours after the back-to-back shootings in El Paso and Dayton in 2019. There was a moment where U.S. Senators were considering red flag legislation, but that moment disappeared as quickly as it started.
Being burned before, I was cautiously optimistic about the team’s ability to get the deal done. I knew both sides would have to follow the rules and respect boundaries to thread this needle. I knew there were policy lines that couldn’t be crossed, and I knew the policies being considered. Most of them didn’t go far enough for my liking, but I have understood from the very beginning that change on this issue would only come through compromise.
The updates on the deal came haphazardly through text messages. I knew how lucky I was to have this information directly from the source, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t push. It was clear banning semi-automatic rifles wasn’t in consideration, but I wasn’t going to miss my chance to push for more controls placed on anyone <21 looking to purchase a firearm. More areas too, but this piece felt extremely important to me.
With each day and more information, I began to feel it was doable, and that made me want it even more. It was getting harder and harder to sit in Kentucky as the process drug out. “Surely there is someone I can lobby!” I’d say to the staffer. He’d respond with, “Not yet. There will be a time for that, but not yet.”
Then it happened! On Sunday June 12th the text messages of hope turned into a press release announcing a framework. Led by Senators Cornyn (TX), Murphy (CT), Sinema (AZ), and Tillis (NC), 16 additional Senators had joined in to share their support of a framework for gun safety. Policies included federal funding for mental health and school safety, incentives for red flag laws, increased prohibitions for domestic violence, increased penalties for trafficking and straw purchases, and increased scrutiny on juvenile records when those under 21 were purchasing a gun.
I was caught off guard. This hypothetical was now public and that made it feel more real and more doable than ever! I was vacationing with family at the lake, and I was immediately transformed. No more lake time! I must let everyone know this is real and doable and worth the effort! Not only were the policies important for saving lives, but these Senators also made it filibuster proof! With ten republicans they had enough votes without lobbying their peers for passage.
There are far too many moments where the stars have aligned since we began Whitney/Strong. I remember a friend saying once these are called “God winks”. I like that, and we were about to experience another major one.
Before Uvalde, we had been invited to attend the ten-year commemorative Sandy Hook Promise gala. I’ve written about my relationship with Mark Barden before. Mark’s son Daniel was murdered in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. I never imagined knowing him as I watched the horrific news coverage from a tiny apartment in NYC. I was pregnant with my daughter and nursing my one-year-old back to health after a surgery. It was a core memory I will hold with me forever.
Wednesday June 15th was scheduled for the gala, and Waller and I wanted to be there to support their efforts. Our Kentucky bill, Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention, has progressed with bipartisan support in part because of the support of Sandy Hook Promise. I am a huge fan of the organization’s work and will always be grateful to have them as a partner in Kentucky. That said, we did not anticipate being in D.C. in the week following the announcement of the framework. God wink #1.
With the gala scheduled for the evening, Waller and I went to work scheduling meetings with staff for Senators McConnell, Portman, and Young. While Senator Portman was included in the press release as one of the twenty Senators supporting the framework, McConnell and Young were not. We wanted to make our support for the framework clear and ask for their support.
Prior to our meetings, both McConnell and Young had announced publicly their support for the framework. As we entered the meetings, we were met with staff that were remarkable in every way. In 2019 the experience was very different. The W/S team met with Members and staff to advocate for policies that could reduce gun deaths. At the time comprehensive background checks were the primary focus, and I will never forget the resistance we received from Republican members. It was my first experience reconciling that what is popular to most Americans is not necessarily popular with lawmakers. These meetings helped prepare me for many future meetings with state lawmakers holding similar viewpoints.
With this round there was no need to rehash the validity of the problem and the policies that could prevent it. Aligned in our mission to do something to prevent more horrible tragedies, we jumped right into the policies under consideration and where we could be helpful in collecting more votes of support. It felt like an alternate reality, but I decided to put my faith in these staffers and project my optimism as far and as wide as possible. I knew that for us to see this bill turn into law, we needed to continue the pressure with emails, calls, and letters – actions supporters are only willing to take if they BELIEVE change can come.
As we prepared ourselves to attend the gala, I can remember sitting with Waller in the hotel room processing what I had experienced. I was confident in our intel, in the staffers we had met with, in the twenty Senators who had committed their votes, and in our supporters’ ability to see this through. I didn’t immediately recognize the feeling, but it didn’t feel normal. Most of my days with lawmakers end with disappointment. Here I was ending the day with hope, joy, and excitement.
I carried these feelings with me into the gala. It was an incredible evening filled with inspiration as Sandy Hook Promise moves forward with programs and solutions to reduce gun deaths with our children. We hopped on a flight home to Louisville the next morning and prepared ourselves for another week in D.C.
Here is God wink #2. Would you believe that we had scheduled our advocacy week in D.C. weeks before the horrific Uvalde shooting occurred? Of all the weeks in 2022, we scheduled it during the EXACT week historic legislation to reduce gun deaths would pass. It is impossible to wrap my mind around.
Waller and I headed into D.C. on Monday to prepare for meetings with members and staff on the 22nd and the 23rd. We were thrilled to have two members of the W/S team join us, Program Manager Danea Cloyd, and Grant Writer Christa Rounsavall. Our goal was to ensure the original twenty stayed committed and to pick up any additional votes possible. Our days were long. We met with Senators Blumenthal - CT, Cornyn - TX, McConnell - KY, and Tim Scott - SC, Congressmen Hollingsworth - IN and Yarmuth - KY, and staff for Senators Brown - OH, Cassidy - LA, Collins - ME, Kelly - AZ, King - ME, Manchin - WV, Tester - MT, Toomey - PA, and Wicker - MS. At this same time, the bill language was now available, making for more substantive conversations regarding what we liked and what we wanted strengthened within the bill.
There is nothing like being in D.C. to advocate for the cause you hold dear. It is the honor of my life to represent your voice to these members and staff as we push for new laws that will keep us safe. Like the previous week, we were met with (mainly) overwhelming support. There were a few snags made public by Senator Cornyn, including disagreement around the definition of “boyfriend” and on which states would be eligible for the crisis intervention court programs, aka “red flag laws”. While the future of the bill was more precarious than before, our intel left us hopeful the wheels were still on the track.
Throughout these meetings it became clear that adding any additional republicans to the list of supporters was a tall order. There were the original 10: (Cornyn - TX, Tillis - NC, Blunt - MO, Graham - SC, Cassidy - LA, Collins - ME, Portman - OH, Romney - UT, Toomey - PA, and Burr - NC) and an additional five had been added: (McConnell - KY, Capito - WV, Ernst - IA, Murkowski - AK, and Young - IN). We were asked to go after Scott - SC, Rubio - FL, and Wicker – MS.
After two full days of meetings, it was time for votes. A procedural vote was scheduled for mid-day. Waller and I had planned to spend the day with our children who had joined us this trip, so we visited the heartbreaking United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and toured the Capitol. In between tours we were given exclusive access, thanks to Senator McConnell and his team, to watch the procedural vote. Imagine the Senate floor with a gallery encircling it. No, you aren’t on the floor, but you are close enough to see every U.S. Senator without glasses (at least for me), and close enough to overhear some of their conversations! Certainly, you can read lips.
Excuse my excitement. I grew up quite interested in politics and follow presidential candidates more closely than most. To be in the room with previous presidential candidates including Senators Romney and Warren was surreal. It was also fascinating to follow the exchanges between lawmakers, particularly those between a dealmaker (Murphy, Sinema, Cornyn, and Tillis) and those expected to vote “nay”. I must also share that Senator Sinema of AZ was extremely active, bustling around the chamber floor in the most perfect Whitney/Strong-branded pink dress you have ever seen. If anyone reading this blog knows where it can be purchased, I would like to find it for myself so that I can forever remember the woman who courageously led us to legislative victory.
The vote went as expected, most Senators sticking to their original vote. I held out hope that Senators Scott, Rubio, and Wicker would flip, but it did not come to fruition. Our group stayed in the gallery for the full duration of the vote, ~2 hours, but then it was time to leave and await the final vote. This round felt like practice, yet it served an integral role in cementing the belief that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was going to happen.
Later that evening we had an evening bike tour of the capitol monuments that had been previously scheduled. We were uncertain of when the final vote would come but knew we would scrap anything to have access to it. Sure enough, we received a text message to come to the Capitol immediately as the final vote would be coming shortly. Waller and I quickly communicated to the children that, unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to continue the tour and that we needed to leave to WITNESS HISTORY. The four of us hightailed it back to the bike shop, pedaling hard and darting between museums. We were able to get back safely and grab a taxi to Capitol Hill.
Christa met us at the Capitol, Danea has already returned to Kentucky. We passed through security and thanks to a McConnell staffer, loaded up on a few snacks before heading over to the chamber. As we made our way to the chamber, on foot and via the train, I steeled myself for what I knew would be an emotional moment. As I have messaged before, I never believed legislative victory would be possible this quickly. I understood the importance of representing common ground and pulling more people into the movement, but I honestly believed it would take decades. Somehow, miraculously, I was about to witness 65 Senators elevate into their highest versions of self, all for the greater good of our country. It was everything I believed to be GOOD about this country and I was about to witness it!
As we entered the gallery it was still empty. I wondered why other advocates associated with reducing gun deaths were not there. The crowd would expand a bit as the night went on, but still, it was an exclusive group of individuals allowed into the gallery. I will forever be grateful to Senator McConnell for providing this opportunity.
Before the speeches and votes, Senator McConnell made his way up to the gallery to greet us. I felt so deeply tied to the outcome that I needed reassurance that the bill would pass. He gave me that reassurance and I thanked him for his leadership. I was so overcome with gratitude I asked if I could give him a hug. I’m not sure that happens very often, but when one of the most powerful men in the history of the U.S. decides to do the right thing on the issue I hold so dear, how could I not be overcome with gratitude?
Senator McConnell returned to the Senate floor and the rest of us settled in for the speeches and votes. While my children are not yet teenagers, they understood the significance and initiated handholding across the aisle as we awaited what came next.
Senator Cornyn kicked off the speeches. As you would expect, his speech conveyed the need to increase public safety while balancing Second Amendment rights. No one should ever underestimate the pressure applied to republicans on this issue, and Senator Cornyn skillfully outlined why every provision was necessary and highly targeted. This was not a bill that would impact law-abiding citizens, just the high-risk individuals intent upon harming self or others. A premise every American can support.
There were other speeches that will not stick with me, but then came Senator Murphy. He was equally courageous in his leadership of this deal. For nearly three decades we have sat at an impasse on this issue. With every horrific mass shooting that includes a high death count, calls for action are made with increased volume. Up until this moment, democrats have consistently pushed for legislation that stood zero chance of passage. On the reverse, republicans have refused to compromise. And on we go. THIS IS WHY THIS MOMENT WAS SO SPECIAL – it yielded an outcome.
Senator Murphy praised his peers for meeting the moment and passing this historic legislation that will save thousands of lives. He is an excellent orator and speaks with intelligence and compassion. If you did not know, Senator Murphy was a brand-new Senator when he was faced with responding to the Sandy Hook massacre.
Both Senators (Cornyn and Murphy) brought me to tears. I was trying to balance the need to burst into a full-fledged sob with staying composed so that I could remember every detail of what I was about to witness. Then the votes began.
Voting isn’t a spectacular gesture. Senators make their way to the front of the chamber and show a thumbs up for “aye” and a thumbs down for “no”. I remember feeling anger toward the latter and being confused why those in support weren’t as frustrated as me. I understand now that while this feels like a matter of life and death to me, these Senators are peers and will continue voting in agreement and in opposition for the rest of their careers. What felt significant to me was just another day at work for them.
The votes went much slower than I expected. Members coming in and out of the gallery, taking their time for side conversations even. As the final vote came in and the vote total was announced, I was overcome with joy. ABSOLUTE PURE JOY! This thing that everyone said would never happen… this thing that I had given up my career for and had put my hopes and beliefs into... this thing that had to happen so that everything after it felt more doable… It was the single most joyful moment of my professional life! I WILL NEVER FORGET IT AND YOU FOR MAKING IT POSSIBLE.
As I go back to that moment with my family and our team, I want you to know what resonates now.
NEVER GIVE UP! In 2019 I left Washington battered and bruised, temporarily incapable of believing change was possible after meetings with Senator McConnell and others. However, I did not relent. We did not relent. And here we are, beneficiaries of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – a historic win for all of us!
Praise people when they do the right thing. This is hard but if we are to inspire leaders to evolve on issues and meet the needs of an ever-changing country, they need to be praised for changing their minds.
CELEBRATE! This issue is impossible at times. It is tied to death and carnage and trauma, and I personally feel defeated regularly. Therefore, it is so important to celebrate the wins. They will encourage you when you are weak again.
Watch for how this piece of legislation opens the portfolio of solutions, legislative and non-legislative. People need to hope to act, and action is necessary for change. Cling to the hope this law provides and assess the role you must play in action moving forward. God knows we have more work to do, and I need you.
Forever grateful and inspired by this moment.
Whitney