By Celeste Fremon

SPECIAL TO MSNBC

May 17 - The idea of a whole lot of mothers gathered together for any reason is a concept I find cheering. I trust moms. I trust their passion, their good sense and their ability to get things done. I mean, if a single mom can lift an automobile off her toddler, surely whole crowds of us can accomplish whatever our collective hearts perceive as righteous. At least that's what the organizers of the Million Mom March were betting on.

THE ORIGINAL IDEA behind the march was inarguably terrific. A million moms - or numbers thereabouts - would show up on Mother's Day in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against gun control, an issue about which the majority of American women have very strong feelings. Since, as voters, we are the 800-pound gorilla, lawmakers would have to listen to us.

There was, however, one teensy weensy flaw in the plan: Most mothers can't pick up and leave home for the weekend, even for a cause as essential as keeping one's kids safe from firearms. (Think about it: In all the publicity surrounding the Million Man March, did you ever hear of one guy marcher complaining about how hard it was to find a baby sitter, or worrying about who would make his kids' lunch on Monday morning while he was out of town? No, you did not.) As a result, 60 or so regional marches were quickly added to the schedule. Since I live in Los Angeles, I was able to choose between two Million Mom events - one at the Federal Building in Westwood, the other at Olvera Street in East Los Angeles. I chose the East L.A. march and decided to drag my 14-year-old son, Will, with me, a prospect that did not exactly delight him.

AN EMOTIONAL ISSUE

"Why do we have to do this on a weekend?" my adorable offspring inquired in a decidedly grumpy tone.

"Because it's important to stand up for what you believe in," I snapped in reply. "And I believe in gun control."

"No, you're hysterical about gun control," he muttered sullenly. But he didn't argue. Will knows a losing battle when he sees one.

It's not, by the way, that I'm opposed to firearms altogether. My mother is from Montana, half of my friends in the Big Sky State are hunters, and long ago I decided that if I was going to continue to eat meat, it was a bit insincere to be too persnickety on the hunting question. By the same token, if I were crowned Queen of the World tomorrow, I'd ban all handguns without so much as a blink. Since my coronation isn't about to happen, I'm willing, at least for now, to settle for the goals of the Million Moms - namely licensing, registration, background checks, no more than one gun purchased a month, trigger locks.

TOO MANY FUNERALS

In my 10 years of reporting on gangs, I've been to 26 funerals for young men who died as a result of gun violence.

The reason for my attitude on the gun issue is fairly simple: I've helped too many moms bury their sons, and I never want to have bury my own son because he accidentally got in the way of some NRA-protected fool toting a Tech 9. See, in addition to being a mother, I'm also journalist who often writes about gangs. (Those of you who've read my columns before are already aware of this.) Anyway, in the course of my 10 years of gang reporting, I've been to 26 funerals for young men who died as a result of gun violence. Some were gang members, others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. All were kids I knew and cared about. Whatever the circumstances, I noticed that in every case two things were true. One, there is a terrible sameness to the pain on the faces of 26 mothers as they watched their boys be put in the ground, and two, had guns not been so readily available, most of those kids would be alive today.

Even the gang members themselves admit it. I know this because whenever I've interviewed a homeboy, I've always asked him what he'd do if given three wishes by a fairy godmother. The first two wishes are inevitably pretty predictable. Most kids say they want "a good life," and "a lady who loves me," or some variation on those time-honored themes. It's the last wish I usually found surprising. Out of dozens of gang members - some tough, some not so tough, some heavily armed, some merely wannabe's - nearly all of them told me pretty much the same thing: "I wish the guns would go away."

TRAGEDY CLOSE TO HOME

Let's let every congressperson or senator who has ever voted against reasonable gun control legislation inform the next mother that her kid has been killed.

Me too. I first came to this conclusion in 1965 when I was three years older than my own son is now, and attending an upscale Southern California high school. That's the year my best friend's 13-year-old brother had a fight with his parents and his seventh-grade girlfriend all in the same week. On Friday he locked himself in the family bathroom with his dad's revolver and, in one crazy moment of misery and hormones, blew his brains all over the vanity mirror.

Then in June of 1966, when I was a senior, the quarterback of our high school football team got into an argument with an older guy at a party on the night before graduation. Tom was a golden, beautiful boy that the girls swooned over, and he was also smart enough to get a scholarship to Annapolis. The other guy was drunk, hotheaded, and somehow able to get his hands on a 22-caliber pistol. A week later, Tom the golden quarterback was buried in the brand new blue suit he was supposed to have worn to accept his diploma.

Even then, I knew utterly and to the bottom of my toes that had guns not been so effortlessly within reach, in both instances the crises would have blown over, two boys would have had an opportunity to grow up, two moms wouldn't have holes in their hearts that nothing could ever again fix.

On that note, I have an idea. Let's take each and every congressperson or senator who has voted against reasonable gun control legislation and assign them the task of informing the next mother that her kid has been killed. I think that's fair, don't you? They can be the ones to knock on the front door and face the women whose sons and daughters have been shot in the latest drive-by, or by the latest nut case who decides to light up a day care center, or by the latest hopeless adolescent who opens fire in a school cafeteria. I want those legislators to hear the scream that's like no other scream in the world.

HEAR THE SILENCE

Let's let every NRA lobbiest watch while the life leaks out of a mother's eyes as she grapples with the realization that her child is dead forever.

Of course, it isn't always a scream. Sometimes it's a silence. So let's make it a rule that every NRA lobbyist has to stand in the presence of that soul-annihilating silence at least once. Let them be forced to watch while the life leaks out of a mother's eyes as she grapples with the realization that her child is dead forever. Guns may not kill people. People with guns bloody well do.

OK so, yes. Will was right. I came to the march with a big-time agenda. The day was warm and bright by the time 5,000 of us gathered at Olvera Street (and another 2,000 in Westwood). Men and kids dappled the crowd, yet the prevailing mood was ferociously maternal. There were early reports that the D.C. march had drawn nearly a three quarters of a million demonstrators, and the news traveled through the Los Angeles troops like an adrenaline rush.

Before we walked, representatives from various communities read off the names of the children killed in L.A. this year by gun violence, 143 names in all. "We are here to say, 'Don't mess with mothers any longer,' a woman preacher from the First AME Church in South Central Los Angeles shouted, and the crowd roared back its approval. At least half of the marchers carried signs, obviously having dumped their traditional morning brunch plans to expropriate their kids' computer graphic programs and/or poster paints. Five feet over from me, a small, pretty Latina held a hand-lettered board that read, "I heard his first words. I saw his first steps. I took him to his first day of school. But I didn't see him get shot." She saw me jotting down her message and looked up. Our gazes locked for a moment, then the throng began to move. "Enough is enough," 5,000 lips chanted, bright-colored placards swaying above our heads like roses.

RADIATING EMPOWERMENT

At the conclusion of the march (which was not much more than a mile), everywhere I looked I saw female faces of all ages and skin shades radiating empowerment. My son, however, affected crushing fatigue. "I need water," he gasped. "You're demonstrating to save kids and I'm dying of dehydration."

"You know, I really am doing this for you," I said once we were back in the car and he had finished emptying the contents of an Arrowhead Spring Water bottle into his decidedly unparched looking mouth.

"Mmmrrrmmpphh," he replied. Or words to that effect. He then turned his attention to his personal CD player and earphones.

I nearly cranked up a lecture until I remembered the greeting card he'd given me in the morning. Will usually gives me funny cards. But this one bore an uncharacteristically sentimental message about the value of moms who overcome obstacles and pursue goals that always include their kids. "Having a mother like this makes it easy to grow up into a loving, strong adult," it said. "Thank you for being this kind of wonderful mother."

The truth is, I'm a horrid mother at times. I get overtired, lose my temper and shout at Will over ridiculous things, like whether or not he took the silverware out of the dishwasher in a timely fashion. But he also knows I love him more than anything on this or any other planet. And I will do whatever is necessary to protect him - whether it means taking his side against an unreasonable teacher, instituting consequences when he himself has broken the family rules, or marching with other moms on a sunny Sunday afternoon in order to smack some sense into the country's lawmakers. In the end, I believe it's precisely this knowledge that makes him feel safer than any number of guns ever could or would.

TACKLING THE WORLD

All right, so here's my latest idea. Much ado was generated around the new millennium on Jan. 1, which turned out to be sort of a letdown. Well, why don't we all agree that the year 2000 really started on Mother's Day, when a million American women decided that the problems of the world aren't beyond our reach, that the trick is taking them on one at a time, just like we do at home. First the dishes, next the laundry. First gun control, next the nation's school systems, or health care.

Sure we're busy, but we're stupendous at multitasking, are we not? And enough is enough. We are mothers. Don't mess with us.

Author's PostScript: If you agree with any of the above feel free to send the link to this column (http://www.msnbc.com/news/407900.asp) to your political representatives. Let them know you're a mother, you vote, and you're not in a good mood.