Every year about this time, I think about John Lennon. He was murdered on December 8, 1980. After four decades, it’s an anniversary that still hurts—particularly this year, with the recent spate of Beatlemania spurred by Peter Jackson’s tremendous new documentary about the band. It is bittersweet to watch all that remarkable footage of Lennon, realizing that at the age of 28 he had less than a dozen years left. And then I came across these touching photos of Paul McCartney joining a 2018 march against gun violence. (“One of my best friends was killed in gun violence, so it's important to me.")

Gun craziness still plagues our country—as we were once again reminded last week by the Oxford High School shooting and by this obscene Christmas card sent out by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), yet another sign of the deep roots of American gun fetishism. (Would Jesus ask Santa for ammo?)

So allow me to share with you the tale of how I reacted to Lennon’s assassination. Here’s a revised version of an account I wrote years ago. (Later in this newsletter, I return to current affairs with an item about Chris Christie talking to me about Donald Trump and 2024.) Forgive me if you’ve read it before:

John Lennon was shot outside the Dakota apartment building in New York City, where he and Yoko Ono lived, shortly before 11 p.m. He died within minutes. In those days, news was not instantaneous. Though his murder was announced during Monday Night Football, it wasn't until the next morning that many people—myself included—learned of this horrific event. At that time, I was working at the Center for Study of Responsive Law in Washington, DC—otherwise known as the office of Ralph Nader. I was taking time off from college.

The news hit me—and millions of others—hard. After stumbling into the office—a rabbit warren of offices, some separated by walls made of cartons containing remaindered books produced by the Nader operation—I was asked to hand-deliver a letter from Nader to President Jimmy Carter. We didn't fax or email back then. I don't recall what the letter was about, but Nader was probably once again blasting Carter, who was now a lame duck after losing to Ronald Reagan the previous month, for failing the public interest on a regulatory matter. I didn't mind the assignment. I didn't feel much like working or talking to anyone. It was a cold morning and about half a mile walk. I could stretch this mundane task into an hour of solitude.

I walked down 16th Street NW, and within a few blocks I passed what was then the headquarters of the National Rifle Association, an entire building next to one of Washington's lovely traffic circles. I stared at the building. My sadness and numbness slid into anger. I didn't know yet that Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, had purchased the .38-caliber handgun with which he shot Lennon at a Hawaii gun store despite having a record of mental illness. (He used hollow-point bullets, which typically cause more damaging wounds.) But I did know that the NRA and its allies in the gun industry were one of the most powerful lobbies in town and that their primary concern was easy access to weapons and ammunition. I started talking to the imposing building. "No," I said, "no, you're not going to get off scot-free here, no, no way." And an idea struck.

After dropping off the letter to Carter at the White House, I hurried back to the office. I told Russell Mokhiber, one of the staffers and a veteran agitator, that I had decided to mount a protest rally outside the NRA's office. I was a writer, researcher, and reporter, not an organizer. But here was a chance, I thought, to help spur a debate on gun control. I wanted time off to pull together the event. Mokhiber approached Nader, who said that would be fine but that I should do it as a private citizen, not as an associate of the Center. I immediately formed Citizens Against Gun Violence, an "ad hoc citizens group."

CAGV—that is, me—quickly picked a date a few days hence for the event and designed a flyer advertising the rally. In recent weeks, there had been other horrific instances of handgun violence in Washington. Michael Halberstam, a local doctor and the brother of well-known author David Halberstam, had been shot and killed by an intruder whom he had chased out of his home. And Yolanda Ward, a 22-year-old housing activist, was also shot and killed during a robbery. The flyer featured Halberstam, Ward, and Lennon. And I asked a copy shop—no Kinko's back then—to print hundreds of copies on a super-rush basis. In those days, it could take a day or two to have such a job done. The person at the counter looked at the material and said, "Come back in an hour."

CAGV grew in numbers, by which I mean that several interns at the Center and some friends of mine volunteered to put up flyers around town. Mokhiber went out and bought a bullhorn. I filed a permit application minutes before it was due. A local radio station announced that Lennon fans would be gathering at the end of the day on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As soon as the copies of the flyer were ready, I picked them up and headed toward the memorial.

There were several hundred people on the steps. One scrawny-looking fellow was in the middle of the crowd, holding up a cheap cassette player that was blaring various Beatles and Lennon tunes. I politely pushed my way toward him and handed him one of the flyers. I asked if, at an appropriate time, he would let the people around him know about the rally. He looked at the flyer. The cassette player was playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." He said, "No, you tell them." The song ended. He turned off the machine and said, "This guy has something he wants to say to you."

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I made my first and only political speech. "We've just heard this song that says, 'After all this time, we must surely be learning," I began. "But are we? There are 10,000 handgun deaths a year. Are we learning how we can prevent that?" I noted that not only Lennon but important members of our community had been killed by guns recently and that efforts to enact restrictions on guns routinely fail. "Why?" I asked. "Because people who work there"—I pointed across the Reflecting Pool toward the Capitol—"listen too much to the people over there"—I pointed in the direction of the NRA building. But, I added, now was an appropriate time to show that other Americans had different views. I asked the people there to come to the rally. And I'm afraid I said something corny like, "Imagine if everyone who feels as you do today showed up." When I was done, the scrawny fellow gave me a hug; the people applauded. I darted off to start putting up the flyers.

Besides working the grassroots, CAGV had a media strategy. I had colleagues at the Center call up various media outlets—particularly rock radio stations. They asked for the news or program director and said something like, "I hear there's going to be a large protest outside the NRA headquarters in three days to commemorate the death of John Lennon and to call for sensible handgun control, and I want to go. Do you have any information on this?" Of course, they did not. But invariably the person on the other end of the phone said, "No, but if you find out anything please let me know."

Hours later, I would call these media people and say, "I'm David Corn of Citizens Against Gun Violence, an ad hoc citizens group. I understand you're looking for information on the rally we're holding." Everyone was keen on listening to me. Several radio stations invited me to come into their studios to talk about the event. "Was I exploiting this tragedy to make a political point?" some queried. "Yes," I said. The aim was to use this killing to advance policies that might prevent other tragedies from occurring. "Do you think," I countered, "that John Lennon, the antiwar, antiviolence activist, would mind?"

Word got out. People started calling from all over the region. Some students at a college—I believe it was in Pennsylvania—were renting a bus. I contacted the leading gun control advocates in Washington, convinced them this event was going to happen, and got them to commit to attending and speaking.

The rally went off as planned. Between one and two thousand people, I believe, showed up and crowded into the traffic circle across from the NRA building. There were camera crews, reporters from newspapers. I put the professional handgun control advocates in front of the journalists; they gave the interviews. So too did relatives of Halberstam and Ward. All these people used the new bullhorn and spoke of the urgent need for restraints on guns. I gave no speech. One woman approached me and said she had come because she had heard me on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The bus from Pennsylvania (or wherever) arrived. Cars driving by honked.

The event—as far as such events go—was a success. There was media coverage. Those who participated felt they had done something with their grief and anger. As almost always happens when a prominent act of gun violence occurs, the subject was again on the radar—briefly. Yet that moment—like many similar ones—quickly faded. It is now 41 years later. Lennon is still dead. (And so is George Harrison.) The NRA long ago moved to a bigger and better headquarters in suburban Virginia. The gun lobby has had many ups and downs, and it’s experiencing plenty of legal troubles. But there is little chance of any gun safety action in the current Congress, due mainly to obstructionist Republicans, and the packed-with-conservatives Supreme Court may be poised to overturn or eviscerate a strong New York State gun control law. Lennon's death, it turns out, was no catalyst for action. And in the face of the fierce opposition from gun rights extremists and the gun industry, gun safety advocates—after all this time, after Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Charleston, Las Vegas, Parkland, all the tragedies—still have not developed the might needed to beat back the American obsession with weapons and stem the bloody tide of gun violence. That’s just one reason the anniversary of Lennon's death remains a dark day.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

Christie: Trump Is Afraid to Lose

I had the opportunity to speak with former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie the other day, and I put this question to him: “I’m not going to ask you to predict whether Donald Trump will run for president in 2024. But since you say he is a friend and you know him well, how do you think Trump is thinking about the decision to run or not?” Christie obviously has been pondering this, given that he appears to be considering his own possible run. I don’t know why he’s bothering. His lane in the GOP—no George Washington Bridge jokes, please—was shut down long ago. There is no demand these days within the party for a moderate Republican who contends he can get along with Democrats. And his new book—Republican Rescue: Saving the Party From Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden—is not a GOP voter pleaser. Sales have been abysmal. Democrats don’t want to buy a book from a onetime Trump enabler, and Republicans certainly aren't itching to hear that their party is addicted to lies, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. Trump took a poke at Christie—who has called on Trump to drop the Big Lie and move on if he wants to seek the presidency in 2024—and issued a one-line statement noting the book’s flop.

Christie mentioned to me that he knew Trump was enraged by his book, and then he turned to my question: “Trump won’t run if he thinks he might lose. No way. He is deadly afraid of losing again. Though”—here Christie laughed—“he would say he didn’t lose. He would never admit it. But he can’t take another loss. So it depends on white suburban women voters. If he thinks he can get them, he’ll run. That’s what it all hinges on.” But he wants to run, right? I asked. “Definitely,” Christie replied. Does Melania have a say in this? “No,” he said with a chuckle. “But if he does run, I know how she’s going to vote.”

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

Beyond Cousteau. When I was a kid, I relished nature shows. There was Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, with host Marlin Perkins often sending assistant/cameraman Jim Fowler into dangerous spots—say, a literal snake pit—while he narrated from a safe distance. And all those National Geographic specials. I even wrote lyrics to the NatGeo theme music. (“We’ve got gorillas / We have lions and tigers for you.”) But my heart belonged most to Jacques Cousteau, the daring and dashing French co-inventor of the aqualung who piloted his Calypso ship across the seven seas to bring us the glorious mysteries of the deep. For millions—probably hundreds of millions—of humans, he was an ambassador to another world. And as Liz Garbus’ new documentary Becoming Cousteau shows, Captain Cousteau was an essential figure in teaching us how the largely unknown oceanic world is a crucial part of our own.

Garbus tracks Cousteau’s love affair with diving that led him to pioneer underwater equipment and filming. Given Cousteau’s passion for cinema, it’s not surprising (and it was fortunate for Garbus) that there exists remarkable and poignant archival footage of Cousteau’s early days, including film of the death of one of his collaborators, who perished while testing their diving gear at great depth. When Cousteau and the Calypso first hit the high seas—with future director Louis Malle as an intern—he had to finance his explorations by doing underwater work for oil companies. (Abu Dhabi is now wealthy in part due to Cousteau’s endeavors.) But Cousteau was saved from life as a fossil fuel exploiter by television. Several years after his Academy Award–winning documentary, The Silent World, made him famous, ABC signed him up to produce what would become the most popular documentary series in broadcast history. The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was what captivated me, and it ran from 1968 to 1976. But then the network dropped it. Cousteau had shifted his view on the oceans. They were no longer only places of beauty and wonder; they were environments being threatened and destroyed by pollution and other human activity. His films, he said, “are no more just about beautiful little fish but...are dealing with the fate of mankind.” He became one of the globe’s first conservationists focused on the oceans. He successfully pressed for a treaty banning oil and mineral exploration in Antarctica and became an early warner of climate change.

Garbus captures both Cousteau’s joie de vivre and his worry for the planet. The documentary, a National Geographic film streaming on Disney+, doesn’t skimp on his messy private life and highlights his wife Simone’s obsession with seafaring life. She was more attached to Calypso than her husband was, remarking, “Calypso has given me everything. No man in the world could ever offer me what this vessel has. This boat is my paradise...It is the only reason for my being alive.” Ultimately, Garbus’ wonderful film is about an adventurer who became an advocate. (Twenty-four years after his death, the Cousteau Society is still in business.) Cousteau helped push the world toward the 1992 Rio Summit, the first gathering of global leaders regarding the threat of climate change. Yet even back then he fretted that it could be too late to save the planet. At one point, he was asked if he was optimistic about the fate of Earth’s ecosystem. “I ask myself this question,” he replied. “I have a great faith in human beings, and I believe that someday people are going to evolve and begin to care.” That was three decades ago.

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