On a Friday morning in December, Jenny Lingle鈥檚 house in Boise, Idaho, is buzzing with the sounds of young children. Her daughters, Ruby, 4, and Lucy, 7, and their friend, Hannah, sit at the kitchen table, chatting between bites of breakfast.
Most days, Lingle works as a nurse at a local hospital. But on days like today, she鈥檚 half of an elementary school carpool, getting her daughters and their friend ready for school.
When You Look At A Gun, What Do You See?
To better understand why the topic of guns is so polarizing, we spent time with people as they considered this question and shared their answer.
Lingle says it was her kids that first got her into activism. Two and a half years ago, she started volunteering with the gun control group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
鈥淚 think that the experience of having a child changes you in every possible way,鈥� Lingle said. 鈥淏ut it really reinforces the idea that every life is so precious.鈥�
When she first joined Moms Demand, she says she was 鈥渇eeling pretty helpless and overwhelmed about the amount of gun violence that was going on.鈥�
鈥淚 just don鈥檛 think it has to be this way,鈥� said Lingle. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we have to live in a country where people shoot each other all the time.鈥�
After her daughter Lucy, center, was born, Lingle says stories of gun violence hit her differently.
Heath Druzin / Boise State Public Radio
And then in 2012, she had her first daughter, Lucy.
鈥淚 got in the car to drive to get groceries with her one day and turned on the radio, and Sandy Hook had just happened,鈥� Lingle recalled. 鈥淎nd I just remember this, like deep, deep sorrow, and just this pit of fear that I just could not imagine losing my child, especially to gun violence. So becoming a parent definitely started to change the way I heard and experienced stories about gun violence.鈥�
Lingle grew up in a different type of community, in small towns of just a few hundred or thousand people, all on the doorstep of Idaho鈥檚 backcountry.
鈥淚鈥檓 a fourth generation Idahoan,鈥� Lingle said. 鈥淚鈥檝e lived in lots of rural parts of the state.鈥�
As a result, Lingle says, guns were part of her upbringing.
鈥淚 come from a huge hunting and sport shooting family 鈥� like, dad, stepdad, brothers,鈥� Lingle said. 鈥淢uch of their free time revolves around it.鈥�
But Lingle says they were always stored away.
鈥淕rowing up, we had a lot of guns in our house, but they were always locked in a big gun safe in my parents鈥� closet, so I never saw them unless they were being brought out for hunting or sports shooting. I never saw a gun just laying around.鈥�
鈥榃hen You Look At A Gun, What Do You See?鈥�
鈥淚 do not buy into the fact that all guns are dangerous or that all people with guns are dangerous,鈥� Lingle said.
鈥淚 think when I see a gun in a public place I experience fear. I have that response, 鈥榃hy is that person carrying a gun in public?鈥� When I see someone out in the woods hunting with a gun or I see a hunting rifle being loaded up into a truck for hunting, I think 鈥極h, fun.鈥欌��
And so, Lingle says, it really boils down to the setting.
But there鈥檚 another issue top of mind for her.
鈥淚n Idaho, we have a problem with suicide,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd that problem revolves around suicide with firearms.鈥�
鈥淚 do think there is an undercurrent to even Idaho gun culture that isn鈥檛 being talked about fairly,鈥� Lingle said, 鈥渁nd that鈥檚 that piece 鈥� that suicide by firearm. And what do we need to be doing differently? Because we are losing a lot of our people to suicide by firearm and particularly our men in rural Idaho.鈥�
And it鈥檚 not a problem unique to Idaho. According to a , less than can correctly identify suicide as being responsible foremost gun deaths.
Resources if you or someone you know is considering suicide:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 or
Options For Deaf + Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889
en espa帽ol: 1-888-628-9454
Veterans Crisis Line & Military Crisis Line: 1-800-273-8255, Press 1
Crisis Text Line: 741-741
In emergency situations, call 911
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