What I tell people who say gun violence is not their problem

Someone told me once, at a fundraiser of all places, that gun violence was a “big city problem” and not something that affected people like them. They were holding a glass of wine in a suburb not far from where my mother shot herself.

I didn’t argue with them. I told them a story instead.

TL;DR: Gun violence isn’t a big city problem or someone else’s problem. It’s an American problem. My mother died by gun suicide in a suburb. Every day, 120 Americans die from gun violence, and most of them aren’t in the headlines. Here’s what I tell people who think it doesn’t affect them.

The numbers nobody talks about

When people think about gun violence, they picture mass shootings. Those are horrifying and they get all the news coverage. But mass shootings account for about 1% of gun deaths in America.

The majority of gun deaths are suicides. About 55% of the roughly 45,000 gun deaths each year. That’s almost 25,000 people, mostly in rural and suburban communities, mostly men, mostly using a handgun they already owned.

My mother was one of those numbers. She didn’t live in a city. She wasn’t in a gang. She was a woman in pain with access to a firearm, and that access made a permanent decision possible in a moment that might have passed.

Why people look away

It’s easier to believe gun violence is happening to someone else, somewhere else. That makes it a policy debate instead of a personal one. You can have opinions about it at dinner without feeling anything.

But once it touches you, and for 40,000 families a year it does, the abstraction disappears. It becomes a phone call. A hospital waiting room. A funeral you weren’t prepared for.

What I’ve learned in advocacy

I was an Everytown for Gun Safety Fellow in Wisconsin. I’ve talked to hundreds of people about gun violence prevention, from state legislators to PTA parents. The thing that moves people isn’t statistics. It’s stories.

Not dramatic stories. Real ones. A mother who locked up her husband’s hunting rifles after he went through a depression. A veteran who asked his buddy to hold his guns while he sorted himself out. A school that started a threat assessment program and caught three kids before anything happened.

Prevention is boring. It’s unglamorous. And it works.

What I say when people push back

When someone tells me this isn’t their problem, I don’t fight them. I ask one question: “Do you know anyone who owns a gun and has ever been depressed?”

The room always goes quiet. Because the answer is always yes.

Gun violence prevention isn’t about taking anyone’s guns. It’s about reducing the chances that a moment of crisis becomes a permanent outcome. Secure storage, crisis intervention, red flag laws, mental health resources. These are practical tools, not political statements.

Why I won’t stop talking about it

My mother never got the chance to seek help. The gun was there, and the moment won. I can’t change that. But I can spend the rest of my career making sure fewer families get the call that mine got.

If that makes people uncomfortable at fundraisers, good. Comfort is part of the problem.