Molly Conley’s mother says everyone has a role in reducing gun violence

Susan Arksey is only slightly joking when she says she’s tried to reach back in time, to change the day her daughter died. Arksey knows there are any number of things she personally could have done to alter the ill-fated day for her daughter, but what about the shooter? Could somebody have done something to make his day less miserable before he took action? Could somebody have preemptively shown him empathy; asked him to talk about questionable Facebook posts or a disgruntled day at work?

Listen: Interview with Molly Conley’s mother

“What’s funny is, Molly did this with people,” Arksey said Friday on KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show. “She’d plunk herself down to somebody and say ‘hey, how are you? No really, how are you doing?’ and share her own troubles or insecurities, because we all have them. Nobody needs to feel alone because they feel marginalized. We all feel marginalized sometimes.”

In the wake of Thursday’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College, Arksey discussed how she’s coped with the 2013 murder of her daughter, Molly Conley, and her ideas for stemming the country’s gun violence problems. One day after her 15th birthday, Conley was killed by Erick Walker during a drive-by shooting spree in Lake Stevens. Walker was sentenced to 91 years in prison in April.

Arksey said she’s been contemplating her role in reducing gun violence around the country for the past 2.5 years, and believes everyone can contribute on a small level. That might mean talking to a person who seems to be raging or upset. That also means sharing personal experiences with one another, acknowledging that everyone feels rejected sometimes.

“Me, I don’t know how to take on the NRA, I don’t know how to change the gun laws, but I do think that it’s not just ‘crazy people’ that are doing these shootings,” she said. “Maybe it is, maybe it’s not, I’m not here as a psychologist, but I think sometimes it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was just too much and they went and did it.”

Chris Harper-Mercer shot and killed 9 people, plus himself, and wounded seven on the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg, Oregon. The gunman’s family reportedly told investigators that he suffered from mental health issues and had sought treatment.

Arksey noted everyone has a different perspective on these recent issues. Andy Parker, the father of former TV reporter Allison Parker, who was shot and killed on live TV in August, is strongly advocating for gun control. She is going a different route.

“Me, that’s not my mission,” Arksey said. “Mine is, what can we do to make it a little bit better out there for people? A little bit less rage, a little bit less road rage. Maybe a little bit less of that pain.”

Arksey disagreed with President Obama’s address to the nation that the country has become desensitized to the violence.

“I do not think the nation has become numb,” she said. “I think it hurts so much. I think people all around this country are just devastated. And I know what it’s like to be a person whose daughter died. And I meet people every day who look at me and they cry or they get tears in their eyes and look at me and say, ‘I’ve been with you this whole time.’ And I say, ‘I know, I understand,’ because I was like that with Virginia Tech. I was devastated with Newtown. I get it, because I was on the other side of it, too, and I felt it. I don’t think anyone’s becoming numb. I think we’re heartbroken and we’re at a loss.”

To curb gun violence, Arksey believes the country should adopt Homeland Security’s campaign for thwarting terrorism that tells the public, “If you see something, say something.” She said that when her daughter was killed in 2013, 30 people were killed per day by gun violence.

“What if it was 28?” Arksey asked. “I know two other moms would be living a pretty nice life compared to the life they’d be living if their child got killed. And that’s what I instantly thought yesterday, “ugh, 10 mothers are going to have to hear. I know how bad that feels. I feel it every day.”

As an example of the small changes individuals can make, Arksey pointed to driving &#8212 asking that if you get cut off by another driver, try a wave or kindness rather than a middle finger or snarky remark. Arksey asked that, if frustrated, think of her situation. She’s sure she probably cut somebody off when she heard one of Molly’s favorite songs come on the radio while she was driving to the funeral home to visit her daughter.

“And I thought, if they only knew what I was doing right now, I think they’d give me a little space,” she said. “Who knows what people are dealing with; we need to know that every day. We do not know what is going on in other people’s heads and we should give them that grace. Why not?”