Beyond Thoughts and Prayers

Rick here. While Michael, Vijay and I, the co-founders of Will You Hear Me Now?, agreed from the very start that this is not a political organization, we all have our own political leanings. Speaking only for myself, I have to confess that I was crushed by the results from November's election. For weeks afterwards, I walked around muttering “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” I think a lot of people in our space share my feelings.

I believe that our work, which has been challenging enough already, will become moreso because of the makeup of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of our government. Most, though not all, have all proven resistant if not hostile to gun law reform. There’s no reason to believe it will be any different next year. Even with mixed control of the three branches of national governance, it’s always felt like an uphill battle.

2020 was the year when gun deaths surpassed all other forms of child mortality in this country. We are the only “advanced” country where this is so and it was our visceral response to this grim statistic that essentially launched Will You Hear Me Now?.

Though most of the indices are down ~15% since 2023, overall gun violence remains shockingly high for the year.

This year, as of Dec. 16, there have been at least 83 school shootings--27 on college campuses and 56 in K-12 schools. This year school shootings have left 38 people dead and at least 115 injured.

On December 13, an afterschool brawl erupted in Philadelphia’s Christmas Village. Khalil Dessus, a teen protecting his brother from bullies was shot in the face, lost his eye and very nearly lost his life. On December 16, a troubled young woman who frequented extremist social media sites, opened fire at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. She killed Rubi Vergara, a fellow student, a teacher, injured six others and took her own life.

In 2024, there has been an eight percent increase in the number of nationwide mass shootings since 2020, according to the Gun Violence Archive. For each of the last four years, there have been more than 600 mass shootings across the US, with two on average [every week].

No, the work has never been easy. The tragedies are so frequent and though they tear at your heart, it’s hard to not pull back just to emotionally protect yourself. But there’s a risk:

"So many Americans have now just become desensitized... the second that this stops impacting us, that's when we stop fighting to create change around it," Jill McMahon, a grief and trauma specialist and author of the bestselling book, 'Bulletproof: Healing After Gun Violence & Trauma', told Daily Express US.

Ms. McMahon goes on to say that: "I can tell you what I don't think is going to make a difference. If we continue to fight Democrats versus Republicans over which side is right, that's delaying any type of remedy here.”

Message received. Gun tragedies happen everywhere. Rural and urban, red state and blue, liberal and conservative communities.

Leakage

One of our previous Roundtable moderators also feels strongly that solutions lay outside the realm of politics. Former FBI agent and current gun violence expert, Kate Schweit, says that statistics point to a leakage between the red flag behaviors of mass shooters and what people around them do or mostly don’t do. 56% of the time, people who have specific information, don’t report it.

“Leakage' is anything that someone relays, whether consciously or unconsciously, that kind of indicates that they are having troubles, that they are troubled [and] they might want to commit a violent act against themselves or others, whether that's suicide or whether that's something as extreme as a mass shooting."

WYHMN - 2024 in Rewind

At WillYouHearMeNow.com, we are all about creating a culture of young people speaking out or speaking up against gun violence. Our core mission is coaching and mentoring our future leaders to share their voices and this year we’ve really grown and gained traction. Back in 2023, we kicked off our messaging creating our powerful theme with the Detroit Youth Choir. This year (2024) we explored Mental Health Awareness Month with a engaged, informative Roundtable. We acknowledged Gun Violence Awareness month by giving voice to Moms Bonded by Grief who speak for children who can no longer speak for themselves. This summer, we featured another Roundtable in which moderator Kate Schweit took a panel of young people through the complex landscape of Supreme Court Second Amendment decisions. We reprised The Song with our youngest voices yet in a powerful, rousing chorus from the students of Halsey Middle School in Queens.

This is no time to become desensitized. This is time to take stock of the people around us. The holidays can be times of joy and sharing. They’re also potentially dark times for people suffering from mental and emotional crises. The problems are not partisan nor arguably are the remedies. Nobody wants to see kids killed in their classrooms or after school hangouts. People of good intent might have different takes on how to fix this, but we’re all agreed that the problem is real.

I leave you with the inspirational words of Ayaan Moledina, a student leader with Students Engaged in Advancing Texas and TeamEnough. I personally found a lot of comfort in what this young man has to say. It’s time to acknowledge the value of amplifying the voices of the next generation of activists and leaders. To support more and double down on our engagement in the New Year. In the meantime, from the founders and young leaders of WillYouHearMeNow? we all wish you a very Happy and Safe New Year!

To learn more about “Will You Hear Me Now?” email us at info@willyouhearmenow.com. To contribute funds to help us with post-production and distribution of our film projects, please visit our GoFundMe and give what you can. To stay on top of our projects in real time, check back here often.

We’ve gotten commentary from young people, who are too young to vote, yet have concerns that they want to share, both with us who do vote and those politicians we are voting for.

We have two Roundtables planned for the coming year. One on civic activism with the student-led organizations TeamEnough and StudentsEngaged. The other Roundtable will cover dealing with grief and trauma with psychologist, counselor Jill McMahon.

We’ve spoken to and gotten feedback from young people all throughout this year. We’re in the process of creating a “post-election” video response for release in January. I can’t imagine we’d have done anything differently if the political landscape had been any different.

So, message received and message shared.