Can You Check?

What I hope Justice Amy Coney Barrett remembers when weighing gun safety cases.

Yesterday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett spoke about her 12-year-old son asking why she needed a bulletproof vest. She described the difficulty of explaining such a frightening reality to a child.

Her comments reminded me of a question my son Evan asked.

Not because he saw a bulletproof vest.

Because his brother was dead.

I was sitting on the floor of the emergency room after learning that Ethan had been shot. Ethan was fifteen. The shock was so overwhelming that I could barely process what the doctor was telling Mike and me.

When Evan arrived at the hospital, he burst into the room desperate for someone to tell him there had been a mistake.

“Are you sure Ethan is dead?” he asked over and over.

Then he looked at us and pleaded, “Can you check?”

As if maybe someone had gotten it wrong.

As if maybe his little brother was still alive.

No mother should ever have to answer those questions.

So, from one mother to another, I ask Justice Barrett to remember families like mine when cases involving gun safety laws come before the Court.

These decisions are not abstract legal theories. They are not political talking points.

They determine whether a child comes home from a friend’s house. Whether a sibling grows up with a brother. Whether a parent must identify their child in a morgue.

I hope that when Justice Barrett weighs these cases, she remembers not only her own children, but children like Ethan.

Because somewhere tonight, another mother may be forced to answer an unbearable question. And no child should ever have to ask, “Are you sure my brother is dead?”