How long before it’s you who loses the gun lottery?

I read the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson when I was in the seventh grade. I’ve never forgotten it, but for the last decade, it has haunted me.

Published in the New Yorker in 1948, it begins with a rural town gathering for some kind of annual festival. We listen in on banal conversations about time flying and times changing. We don’t know what’s happening, but the scene is familiar.

One by one, heads of households approach a box to choose a piece of paper. After all have chosen, hands open to reveal each selection and we see each slip is blank except one. The mood shifts and the woman from the chosen family begins to complain frantically that it wasn’t fair. She is shushed and shamed and now each member of the family must draw from the black box which now holds only five slips of paper. It is the mother who has drawn the black mark. The town official encourages everyone to wrap it up quickly so they can get back to work, and it is only when the first stone strikes the woman on the side of the head that we realize what we’ve been witnessing. This community gathers once a year to draw lots to kill one of their own — a tradition handed down from generation to generation to ensure peace and prosperity.

I think about “The Lottery” often. When I wait with my kindergartner in the drop-off lane. When I kiss my middle schooler goodbye each morning as she walks out the door to catch the bus. When I notice that my high schooler hasn’t texted me to tell me how her chemistry test went.

I think about “The Lottery”’ when I see the tactical weapons shop with the bright white decals of automatic firearms and flashing neon signs that sits less than a mile from my daughters’ schools. I have to pass it four times every school day. I wonder who the people buying those weapons will kill.

I thought of “The Lottery” when I heard the news of the school shooting in Oxford, Mich. Last week it was that school. Which school will draw the marked slip next time?

The shooter’s parents bought him the semi-automatic pistol as an early Christmas present. When a teacher reached out with concerns about his Google search history, his mother laughingly texted him not to get caught next time. Owning a gun made him happy. Owning a gun kept him safe. It was his classmates who drew the fatal tickets in the lottery they didn’t even know they were playing.

I thought of “The Lottery” this week when I saw the picture on the Christmas card Rep. Thomas Massie tweeted to all of us. The whole family — father, mother, little sister, big sister, brothers — perfectly posed, coordinated outfits, coordinated automatic weapons. “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo,” the caption said. All is calm, all is bright. These weapons might kill somebody — but it won’t be us.

I think about “The Lottery” so often because I feel like I’m living it. Living in America means you are forced to participate in a ritual that randomly assigns death to some — one here, three there, wait, now it’s six there — because the majority believe that owning guns will keep them safe and prosperous.

Every time my kids come home safe from school, I think of the mothers whose children will not. I wonder how long our luck will last. I wonder why we choose to do this to ourselves — to our children. I wonder if we’ll ever give up the lottery.

This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 2:00 PM.