Common sense

Local mothers tired of gun violence work for change

Shannon Watts was fed up. It was December 15, 2012, the morning after the Sandy Hook shooting. Watts, a mother of five in Indianapolis, knew there had to be other mothers who were tired of gun violence and the lack of action on the part of lawmakers, so she decided to create a Facebook page. Mothers Demand Action for Gun Sense in America was born.

By February, just a few months later, Tulsa mother Sabine Brown was also fed up. Expecting to see a change in gun laws at the state and local level in the wake of Sandy Hook, but instead seeing lawmakers and the NRA move to put more guns in schools and on the streets, she and a friend considered going to the capitol to protest—but they didn’t know where to start.

“That’s when we found Moms Demand Action on Facebook,” Brown said. “They were actually looking for people to start an Oklahoma Chapter, so we raised our hands and said we’d start something here.”

Since then, local chapters have formed in Oklahoma City, Lawton, Norman and Tulsa, making the encompassing Oklahoma chapter one of the most active and successful groups in the country. Moms Demand Action has worked with corporate partners, the highway patrol, and professors to beat back law-loosening legislation, including a bill that would have amended the state constitution to allow for the repeal of existing gun laws. 

“And we aren’t coming for your guns. That is an impossibility both practically speaking and legally speaking,” said Sara Lenet-Rotenberg, head of the Tulsa chapter. “Our victories have been both legislative and cultural in the state of Oklahoma. Legislatively, we just beat back NRA-backed bills for the first time in Oklahoma.”  These include HB 3098, which would have allowed for permitless open carry, and HJR 1009, a bill that would have kept businesses, educational institutions and private citizens from implementing carry restrictions unless they passed a “strict scrutiny” review in the courts.   

Despite the successes the chapter has seen, both Brown and Lenet-Rotenberg knew that there was still more to be done. Noting the lack of diversity in their membership and the disproportionate ways in which gun violence affects the African American community, they began a “listening tour” by reaching out to local leaders in the community to learn about the specific ways in which gun violence affects people of color.   

“We leaned heavily on advice from our best allies in the community, including Reverend Gerald Davis and former police Chief Drew Diamond,” Lenet-Rotenberg said. “It was sort of a process that the more we learned, the less we knew. It was humbling, but an important humbling.”

The conversations they had with local leaders showed them that they needed to engage with the black community, but in a way that put them in the listening seat. When the film “3 ½ Minutes” came out, they knew they wanted to bring it to Tulsa and combine a screening of the film with a panel discussion, which they’ll host at Circle Cinema on Tuesday, October 18. 

“This screening has truly been the culmination of two years of talking and listening and soul searching … it will be a successful event if it starts a dialogue and brings in a greater representation of people of color into our organization,” Lenet-Rotenberg said. 

The film tells the story of Jordan Davis, a young black man who was gunned down in Jacksonville, Florida by Michael Dunn, a middle-aged white man, for playing his music too loud. The film uses over 200 hours of footage and follows the trial of Dunn and the parents of Davis as they navigate their grief and ultimately become activists in the gun violence prevention community.

“This film looks specifically at Stand Your Ground laws and implicit bias,” Brown said. “And we know Stand Your Ground laws disproportionately affect people of color … At the end of the day, you can’t talk about gun violence without talking about racism … a black man is eleven times more likely to be shot than a white man, and we need to be having real conversations about why that is and what policies need to change to change that fact.” 

Brown and Lenet-Rotenberg have assembled a panel of community leaders and activists to field questions and facilitate a discussion among the community, to take place directly after the screening. Panelists include former Tulsa Police Chief Drew Diamond, Minister of Church of the Restoration Unitarian Universalist Rev. Gerald Davis, Langston University professor of sociology Dr. Art Williams, and Mana Tahaie, Director of Mission Impact-YWCA Tulsa. 

“The questions we want to ask are ‘How are these issues affecting you in your community? What can we do to support you? And what do you wish we knew?’” Lenet-Rotenberg said. “We’ve taken to saying that we are late to the party, and we are sorry, and we are here to listen.”

For more from Amanda, read her article on Written Quincy's open mic night for poets, emcees, and musicians, Cypher 120.