Judy Schneider-Wallace’s first husband killed himself with a shotgun. The horror of the Sandy Hook shootings made Erin Senge an activist. Laura Lichtman looked for ways to help safeguard families after a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
All three are Snohomish County mothers, with the responsibilities that role requires. Spurred by gun violence, they have taken on more. They are speaking out as members of the new Mukilteo/Lynnwood chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
Moms Demand Action started as a Facebook group Dec. 15, 2012, the day after 20 first graders and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. On its website, the nonprofit likens itself to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but with a goal of “common-sense gun reforms.”
If you’re seeing orange, that’s the doing of Moms Demand Action. The group has declared this WearOrange Weekend. The color became associated with gun violence awareness after 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed in Chicago a week after performing at President Barack Obama’s inaugural parade in 2013. The teen’s friends wore orange in her honor.
Friday afternoon, Schneider-Wallace, Senge, Lichtman and others were out waving signs during an “Orange the Overpass” event. They gathered on the I-5 overpass at 164th St. SW and along the Mukilteo Speedway. On Saturday, an orange flag was to be raised at Mukilteo City Hall, where it will fly through June 11, said Jean Smoke, a Moms Demand Action spokeswoman.
Personal pain drew Schneider-Wallace to Moms Demand Action. The Mukilteo woman shared the story of her first husband’s suicide in a 2014 article by The Herald’s Andrea Brown.
After the Parkland shooting in February, “all I wanted to do was cry,” said Schneider-Wallace, who on Friday wore an orange “Use Your Voice” T-shirt.
“Kids started taking action and sharing their voices — and shame on adults,” she said. “As a survivor, I cannot have this movement be only the voices of young people. It is also my responsibility.”
Lichtman, a mother of 9-year-old twin boys, lives in Lynnwood.
After the Parkland shootings, she went to a Moms Demand Action meeting in Shoreline, the closest chapter she could find. “There were a lot of moms from Lynnwood and Mukilteo.”
With Senge, Lichtman decided to share leadership of a new Mukilteo/Lynnwood group.
“I had been following the group and supporting it online since Sandy Hook,” said Senge, of Mukilteo.
Senge has three children. Her 8-year-old daughter is a second-grader, and her 5-year-old girl will start kindergarten this fall. Her son is almost 3.
“When I watched Sandy Hook unfold, I was days away from giving birth to my now 5-year-old. I felt especially shocked and vulnerable,” she said.
“We’re not a radical, liberal group,” Senge said of Moms Demand Action. “We have gun owners and NRA members as well. The vast majority of Americans do support stronger gun laws.”
For Senge, safe storage laws for gun owners are a top priority “because of the number of unintentional shootings of young children,” she said.
Senge favors Initiative 1639, sponsored by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. That group must turn in 259,622 valid signatures by July 6 to qualify the initiative for the state’s fall ballot. “I’m hoping our group will gather signatures,” Senge said.
Initiative 1639 would raise the minimum age for buying a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21, the age required to buy a handgun now.
Judy Schneider-Wallace got her Have Hope tattoo while she and her children dealt with the loss of her first husband, who killed himself with a gun purchased just for that purpose. (Dan Bates / The Herald)
It would require the same background check and waiting period for those rifles as for handguns. Along with a safety course requirement, it would also hold gun owners liable for the safe storage of firearms.
“It’s a good piece of legislation. I would love to see it on the ballot,” Senge said.
Schneider-Wallace recalled the nightmarish day — Sept. 7, 2011 — when her husband bought a shotgun and took his life at their Bothell home. Paul Schneider, she said, had struggled with depression, had been on and off antidepressants, and had lost his job.
She was a second-grade teacher at Endeavour Elementary School, where her 6-year-old daughter, Sydney, was starting first grade that day. Her son Jack, then 12, was starting seventh grade at Olympic View Middle School.
When her husband didn’t pick her daughter up after school and she couldn’t reach him by phone, she raced home — to find police, crime tape and the worst news.
Later, she learned her husband had bought a shotgun that morning.
“It’s the easy accessibility of guns,” Schneider-Wallace said. “I do have to say some laws have changed.” She’s a proponent of extreme-risk protection orders, which became law after Washington voters passed an initiative in 2016.
The law allows family members to seek orders temporarily barring people deemed a danger to themselves or others from having firearms. Gun access may be blocked for up to a year based on a person’s demonstrated risk of suicide, mental illness or potential for violence.
“Maybe he would have made a different choice,” said Schneider-Wallace, who is now remarried. Her husband, Brian Wallace, works for the Boeing Co.
After leaving her teaching job, Schneider-Wallace until recently ran a Mukilteo bakery, The Sydney.
She is now channeling her energy into Moms Demand Action.
“As a survivor, I’ve been living this almost seven years now,” she said. “I’m having hope for the first time in seven years that people are listening and things are happening.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Learn more
Information about Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America: https://momsdemandaction.org/
Gun violence statistics, from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources: https://everytownresearch.org/
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