Lana Whited at Roanoke.Com

I've always felt a little like I was born in the wrong generation. I wasn't yet a teenager when the 1960s ended, so I watched the quintessential protest generation on television. I've always been a demonstrator at heart, although I've only been in two rallies in my entire life: an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in Greensboro, NC, in the mid-'80s and one at Ferrum this spring when our equestrian program was cut. Also, in January 1999, I visited my representatives in Congress for the first time, to lobby for hate crimes legislation.

Last Sunday, when I saw hundreds of thousands of women, children, and men marching on the mall in Washington, D.C. in support of stricter gun control laws, I wanted to be right there with them. I cheered silently as I heard intelligent women use facts and faces to make their point that the 12 children killed by guns every day in this country have mothers and fathers who grieve.

Guns -- handguns in particular -- are pervasive in our society. I'm only one person, and my life has been touched by gun violence four times: a childhood playmate, an aunt, and a student all killed themselves with handguns, and my nephew once fired his father's handgun through a wall, missing his mother's head by inches. A close friend's cousin shot another child (who fortunately survived). I'm tired of the argument that good parenting will solve gun problems. All the people I just listed had good parents, except one.

Registering all guns, child-proofing them, and licensing their owners would make me sleep better at night. I would even be willing to put a complete ban on the private ownership of guns and repealing the Second Amendment on the table. I believe it is time for the selfishness of gun owners and the greed of gun manufacturers and politicians supported by the gun lobby to end.

I want to be very up front about my own position, because I am seriously worried about what happens after the Million Mom March.

The media's coverage of big national events can be an effective public relations tool. If not for the saturated coverage of the Columbine shooting, I'm not sure those moms would have been marching in Washington Sunday.

But just as the media can catalyze activism, too much press can convince us other people will solve the problem. We can be lulled by big news events into thinking our activism won't make a difference, so we might as well stay home.

I fear that, in the wake of the Million Mom March, too many Americans will feel that there's renewed momentum for gun control, and they can turn their attention to other issues. A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (cited in Monday's New York Times) suggests that our concern about guns is getting weaker, not stronger -- just 13 months after Columbine. In March, the Pew folks found that 66 percent of Americans thought gun restrictions more important than gun owners' rights. Last week, that number was down to 57. In March, 29 percent chose rights over restrictions. Last week, that number was up to 38. These numbers will cause rejoicing in the offices of the National Rifle Association.

I also fear a backlash effect from the Million Mom March. Susan Faludi detailed the retribution women suffered after the heyday of the women's movement in "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women" (1991). The gun control movement could experience similar retaliation from the NRA and its cronies. My experience with students in the classroom is that defenders of gun rights are far more vocal than supporters of gun control.

I'm also concerned that the Million Mom March organizers didn't come up with the Big Slogan. If you think slogans are no big deal, consider how often you've heard the arguments that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people" and "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." Clever sloganeering is effective with many Americans, who won't think deeply enough to realize that the first of those slogans is an either-or fallacy and the second is circular reasoning. But they sound catchy, and often, catchy is all it takes. The Million Mom March website features the slogan "Sensible Gun Laws. Safe Kids." It's appealing, but it doesn't stick in the mind.

I noticed that many speakers at the march and the Second Amendment Sisters' counter-rally had been directly affected by gun violence, as either beneficiaries or victims of guns. Remember that Martin Luther King wrote in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that he was concerned not about extremists but about "the white moderate" -- the average American who felt unaffected by racial problems. Gun problems will not be solved until those who have escaped the terror of gun violence get involved, too.

My biggest concern, though, is that we watched the Million MOM March rather than the Million PARENT March. There were men in that crowd, but frankly, there weren't a lot. Men are, as a fact of biology, more aggressive and prone to violence than women. Also, it's difficult for men to side with women in a society which stigmatizes them as effeminate when they identify with the concerns of the "weaker" sex. Just as it took white support of the abolition movement to end slavery, it will take male support -- if not leadership -- to end gun violence in this country. I know men who are strong, gentle people and who are (or could be) soldiers in this campaign. I'm just afraid we can't enlist enough.

Although I have been a feminist since before I knew the word, I understand that men still hold the reins of power in this country. In the 106th Congress, nine of 50 Senators and 56 of 435 Representatives are women. That's 18 percent of the Senate and about 13 percent of the House. According to the web site, gendergap.com, since the first Congress, 11,587 people have served; 197, or just under two percent, have been female. Twenty-six states currently have no women in Congress, and six have never sent a woman to Washington.

I fear that important strides in gun regulation will not be made until more women make laws. We must learn what the NRA has known for years: changes in public opinion are important, but votes -- at the polls and in Congress -- are critical.

I was stunned when I realized that although I give a fair amount of money to charities and advocacy groups, I don't think I've ever given money for handgun control -- despite my long fervor about this issue. That's why I have donated the amount I get paid for this week's column to the Million Mom March (www.millionmommarch.com). I challenge others to consider what form their activism should take.

The Million Mom March was, by all accounts, the largest rally in support of gun control in our nation's history. But its success wasn't decided last Sunday. It won't be decided today. Instead, it will be decided tomorrow and next week and next year, on streets and playgrounds and in our own houses.

The marchers have returned home from Washington. Now is the perfect time to fall in behind them.

A million moms -- and men --need to do more than march