【Watch The Temptation of Kimono (2009)】

After Salli Garrigan survived the Columbine shooting as a high school junior,Watch The Temptation of Kimono (2009) she felt like many of us have following a mass shooting — convinced that the average person can't prevent such tragedies.

The Columbine shooting, which claimed 13 lives, seemed anomalous when it happened. The idea that two teens would plan the deaths of their classmates — and gain access to the necessary weaponry — shocked America into believing that, by god, it would never happen again.

Back then, people scoured the darker corners of the teenage experience in search of answers and solutions. It seemed easier to blame bullying, violent video games, and extreme rock acts like Marilyn Manson for the killers' actions, as many in media and politics did. On the other hand, regulating access to guns felt "scary and drastic," says Garrigan. Rather than viewing Columbine as an opportunity to demand safer gun laws, many people, including politicians and pundits, saw an inexplicable tragedy whose roots only experts could understand.

"I’ve spent so many anniversaries reflecting on who we’ve lost ... and feeling sad that I’ve done nothing to help."

So Garrigan grieved. Then she went out into the world for college and decided that what happened one day in 1999 wouldn't define her life.

But school shootings kept happening, and Garrigan felt increasingly helpless — until the moment she become a full-fledged gun safety activist, in the wake of last year's Parkland shooting. Because of that shift, Garrigan experienced the recent 20th anniversary of Columbine a little differently.

"I’ve spent so many anniversaries reflecting on who we’ve lost ... and feeling sad that I’ve done nothing to help, feeling kind of voiceless," she says. "For me, personally, I now have the motivation [to create] change."

That long journey from resignation to action is possible for anyone who wants to stop feeling paralyzed by the challenge of adopting policies and laws that keep guns out of irresponsible or dangerous hands. In fact, we owe it to survivors like Garrigan and those who've lost their lives to gun violence to take steps toward those goals. Columbine and other mass shootings may reflect a collective failure to act when the stakes are profoundly, tragically high, but as Garrigan's own experience demonstrates, it's never too late to fight for a future free from gun violence.

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This is exactly what Garrigan does as a volunteer for the Virginia chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, an advocacy organization founded after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.

Garrigan, aghast at the deaths of 26 children and adults, remembers asking her best friend: "'What do we do now?' We talked it through and it still felt like our voices didn't matter in the fight."

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She finally joined Moms Demand Action after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. Yet it was noticing the eerie similarities between her own experience at Columbine and the circumstances of the Parkland shooting, while also watching survivors swiftly transform the horror they endured into a political movement, that jolted Garrigan into sharing her perspective and lobbying elected officials for safer gun laws.

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"I am absolutely angry that there’s a whole network of survivors now," says Garrigan, who is a member and volunteer for the Everytown Survivor Network, a nationwide group dedicated to ending gun violence. "I use anger and sadness to keep speaking ... and I do feel my voice matters."

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, says that as a young mother who watched Columbine unfold in real time, she assumed that solutions to preventing gun violence would soon emerge.

"I can remember thinking, 'Someone will take care of this, someone will do something about this,'" she says. "I thought that for a long time."

"I can remember thinking, someone will take care of this, someone will do something about this."

Now Watts, who issued a call to action on Facebook the day after the Sandy Hook shooting, is on the frontline of championing those solutions. Some of those policies have even become law in several states around the country. In particular, she believes that making people safer means passing laws to require background checks on all gun purchases; close the loopholes that make it possible for abusive dating partners to own a firearm; and, allow family members and law enforcement to petition a court to remove guns from "dangerous situations."

Fifteen states and Washington, D.C. have passed such "red flag" laws, which Watts says could potentially prevent future school shootings, as would raising the age for gun purchases to 21, a policy that Moms Demand Action supports.

The organization focuses on gun safety and storage education as well, emphasizing to parents and gun owners that firearms must be secured so that children can't access them. The Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings, respectively, were carried out with guns obtained by the 20-year-old shooter from his mother, and a semiautomatic rifle legally purchased by the 19-year-old shooter.

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"The only way this issue changes is to have strength in numbers," says Watts. "Where this becomes a problem is when there’s apathy."

Indeed, watching round-the-clock news coverage of the latest mass shooting can leave people feeling agitated, numb, or even defeated. It's heartbreaking to know that our classmates, co-workers, neighbors, and loved ones can be killed at school, a house of worship, a movie theater, a music festival, a night club, a restaurant, or even at home, and we feel powerless to stop the carnage. Yet if we can learn anything from a new shooting or the anniversary of a past one — and there are now many — let it be that we can overcome resignation and apathy.

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Garrigan says she was surprised at how easily she could take action once she joined Moms Demand Action via a text message. Suddenly, Garrigan had an outlet for her desire to prevent gun violence through invitations to attend meetings, knock on doors, make phone calls, contact elected officials, and share her story.

Garrigan also felt a new kind of motivation to get involved in the gun violence prevention movement after contemplating what elementary school would look like for her oldest daughter, now four and planning to start kindergarten in the fall of 2020. The prospect of lockdown drills or gun violence in her classroom made Garrigan even more determined to act.

"It’s not about my story anymore," she says. "It’s about their future."

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