Shannon Watts | Woman of the Year 2022
glamour.comBy Photography by There is an infamous from 2015 that Shannon Watts will sometimes bring up in conversation. The British journalist Dan Hodges shared it, invoking the in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 first graders and six adults in 2012. “In retrospect marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Hodges wrote. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”For Watts, the 51-year-old founder of , nothing could be further from the truth: The devastation of Sandy Hook marked the beginning of the largest grassroots movement fighting to end gun violence in the country.
Thanks to the vast network of survivors and volunteers that Watts has helped nurture since then, what began as a collective outpouring of grief and fear has since become an unignorable force in American politics.
In a country that saw gun deaths reach an all-time high in 2021, with more than from gunshot wounds, Watts has spent a decade refusing to wave the white flag.
Her work and the millions of people she’s rallied are a retort: It’s not over.When I meet with Watts in her home in the Bay Area, a shaded retreat with expansive views of the surrounding hills of California, she greets me flanked by her boisterous French bulldogs, Mimi and Lulu.
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