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This Mother’s Day, eight American mothers will wake up having lost a child to gun violence the day before. Another eight mothers will go to bed having lost their children to gun violence on Mother’s Day.

by Shannon Watts, Huffington Post

This Mother’s Day, eight American mothers will wake up having lost a child to gun violence the day before. Another eight mothers will go to bed having lost their children to gun violence on Mother’s Day.

This American epidemic, which has become a public health crisis, goes unaddressed by vocal minority of elected leaders in Washington who seem unwilling to act, either out of cowardice or self-interest.

After the mass shooting of elementary school children in Newtown, I thought Americans would finally stand up and say, “enough.” Twenty children and six adults had been slaughtered in the sanctity of an elementary school by an assault weapon designed for the battlefield. The horror of it was almost too much to believe or comprehend. This has to be the tipping point, I thought. This has to be what moved us as a country to change.

But it wasn’t. Twenty dead first-graders weren’t enough to advance even the weakest of legislative measures.

We have talked for decades about trying to put an end to senseless gun violence by keeping these weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of people who should not have them, including convicted criminals and the clinically insane. This should be something we can all agree on. Our presidents have talked about it for years too, so much so that their speeches weave together as though they were written by the same person.

The vote that failed in the Senate would have been a small step in the right direction, and simply expanded background checks to cover all gun sales. It was a common sense measure, one that 90 percent of Americans, including a majority of the members of the National Rifle Association, supported.

Yet it failed…

Read the entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

The post Keep Your Flowers on Mother’s Day, I Want My Rights appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

How To Pass Gun Legislation

Written by Lisa Wirthman

On March 20, the day her gun control bills were signed into law, Colorado Representative Rhonda Fields could only feel numb.

Her colleague, Colorado Prisons Chief Tom Clements, had been shot and killed by a former inmate at the front door of his home just the night before. “I felt really insignificant,” she says. “I’m still not saving lives at the level that I want to.”

Yet, given the U.S. Senate’s failure to pass gun background checks – backed by 90 percent of the nation – Fields’ achievement is remarkable. She sponsored two of the three bills that became laws in March, limiting gun magazines to 15 rounds and establishing universal background checks. The third law required gun owners to pay for those checks. Only New York and Connecticut have managed similar feats since Sandy Hook.

To be sure, Colorado has lived through Columbine and the movie theater rampage in Fields’ Aurora District last July. But it takes courage to stare down angry Republicans, the NRA and threats on your daughter’s life – for Fields, gun reform has always been personal.

At 58, Fields is the first African American woman to represent the Aurora District. She speaks naturally, has an easy smile and accessorizes her unshakable composure with tailored jackets, low heels, and pearls. Her approachability makes it easy to forget that Fields was ranked by 5280 Magazine as one of Denver’s 50 “most powerful” people. But it’s the contradictions that seem to best define her.

She is tireless in her advocacy, but bone-weary of gun violence. She is friendly, but fierce in her determination to seek justice for victims. She is gracious, but never far away from grief.

In 2005, Fields lost her only son. Just 12 days after graduating from college, Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancée Vivian Wolfe were shot to death in his car in the middle of an Aurora intersection. Javad, who witnessed the murder of a friend, planned to testify at the trial the following week.

“There’s not a day that I don’t think about him,” says Fields. “I’ll never see him get married or age into an old man, and those things are difficult.”

She sat through five trials for the murders of Javad, Vivian, and his friend Gregory Vann, but never considered giving up. “I felt like I had to be Javad’s presence in the courtroom,” she says. “I wanted to be a constant reminder that there was a victim.” Some days she had to leave the courtroom because the testimony was too painful.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Fields had raised Javad and older sister Maisha as a single parent. She sought inspiration from her mother, a military wife who was often alone while her father served three tours of duty in Korea and Vietnam.

“I never saw any weakness from her,” says Fields. “I think quietly, she was showing me how to continue on despite adversities.”

Fields dealt with her grief by launching a quest to solve her son’s crime. She held a press conference to find information about his killers, sponsored Crime Stoppers ads on local bus benches, and held regular meetings with the Aurora Chief of Police.

Her efforts lead to convictions of the men who murdered her son: Two of those killers now sit on death row.

When Fields realized Colorado had inadequate protections for witnesses, she also pushed for new laws: The Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe Witness Protection Act passed in 2006. She also created the Fields Wolfe Memorial Fund to help send kids to college. And in 2010, Fields ran for the State House, where she’s now serving her second term.

“Everyone should use their personal power and their voice to address any wrongs they see in their communities. Never be shy of that,” she says.

On July 20, 2012, Fields was woken at 1:00 am by a call from a constituent. Fields learned that James Holmes had opened fire in a Century Movie Theater in her Aurora District, killing 12 people and injuring 58.

Fields helped organize a prayer vigil for the victims. Then she got to work. Although the new House Session hadn’t even started, she told constituents her next bills would be about gun reform.

“A lot of people were frightened,” she says. “They push you out there, but they don’t want to be on the limb with you.”

Fields says she underestimated the reach of the NRA. “They swarmed on us like locusts. It was overwhelming, and it was tense,” she says. But losing the next election was nothing compared to the threats. Fields received a series of profane and racist e-mails suggesting someone should “Giffords” her with a gun (a reference to the 2011 shooting of Gabrielle Giffords).

Then came the letter sent to her home address, threatening both Fields and her daughter. “There will be blood!” it said. The sender has been arrested for harassment.

Fields was also attacked by gun supporters for a 20-year-old arrest record that she disclosed before running for office in 2010. Fields was arrested on a larceny charge in 1976 and a shoplifting charge in 1991. “It’s a very embarrassing dark, desperate time in my life,” she told the Denver Post. “I’m so glad I’m not the woman I was back then.” Opponents also highlighted more recent traffic violations, including charges that were dismissed.

Despite Fields’ accomplishments, advocacy has not been a panacea for her grief. “What I’ve accomplished after my son’s death amazes me,” she says. “But I am absolutely fatigued, because what I have not allowed myself to do is touch the pain and the loss and the grief.”

Still searching for balance, Fields yearns for a balcony where she can look out at the ocean below. “I want to travel to a remote location where I’m not assigned to be a champion, and I can just be reflective on what’s next,” she says. “I think I’m going to get to that place.”

The post Colorado’s Rhonda Fields overcame personal tragedy, violent threats and a relentless NRA to succeed where the U.S. Senate failed. appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

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MOMS DEMAND ACTION FOR GUN SENSE IN AMERICA LAUNCHES NEW VIDEO AFTER SENATE FAILS TO ACT

Moms Demand Action has launched another video to spur new action by the public after the Senate recently failed to pass common-sense gun laws. The video, “How many more rounds, part II?,” highlights the fruitless conversation our nation has had for decades about the need to establish new and stronger gun laws, despite the shooting tragedies our nation endures more and more frequently. In fact, not a single stronger federal gun law has been passed since the Columbine tragedy more than a decade ago. The video ends with the message, “How many more rounds are we going to let this go on for?” along with a phone number to the Capitol switchboard.

The post Deja Vu – VIDEO: “How Many More Rounds Part II?” appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Rights are not unlimited. The first amendment grants us the right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean you can threaten to bomb an airport or yell fire in a theatre or collect child pornography.

By Hollye Dexter

Moms Demand Action was formed in the wake of the Newtown tragedy by Shannon Watts, a mom in Indiana who’d had enough. Apparently, she was not alone in her feelings. Four months later, we are nationwide with over 90 chapters and almost 100,000 members. The sole objective of Moms Demand Action, a nonpartisan organization, is to make America a safer place for children and all citizens.

Recently our facebook pages came under attack by some zealous, angry gun enthusiasts. Contrary to their accusations, Moms Demand Action is not trying to effect the second amendment or take away anyone’s guns. We don’t want to stop hunters from hunting, nor law-abiding citizens from keeping a gun for self-defense. What we do want is to end mass murders, like we’ve seen in Newtown, Aurora, Tuscon, Virginia Tech, Columbine and others, and to stop terrorists, criminals and crazy people from obtaining guns. Can’t most Americans agree on these objectives?

Our opposition screams we are threatening the second amendment, but it seems that many of our detractors aren’t really familiar with the amendment they cite. The second amendment states, simply, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

That’s it. One sentence. The second amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 at a time of horseback and muskets, when steamboats were the newest discovery in transportation, slavery was legal, and men wore wigs. The times were different, and the wording of the amendment was ambiguous at best. No one could have foreseen the kind of “arms” available today, and nowhere does the amendment state that citizens have unlimited rights to any kind of weapon.

Just ask the Supreme court. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), regarding the second amendment, the Supreme Court stated that “the right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

Read the entire article at opposingview.com

The post Armed In America appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Frustrated after the Senate bill to expand gun background checks failed earlier this month, Heather Whaley has taken matters into her own hands. A member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, she is practicing what the group preaches, calling Senators who voted against the measure one by one. However, as the clip above shows, when she reached one particular Senator’s office, she took a unique approach to the conversation.

Heather Whaley calls for tougher background checks.

Posting a list of phone numbers of the 45 senators who voted against the background checks expansion, Whaley, who lives in Connecticut with her family, not far from Newtown, continued:

“Give them a call, and tell them we will not give up, we demand change, we will not forget this vote and their days in the Senate are numbered. You will enjoy this.”

Leading by example, Whaley posted this powerful YouTube video two days later. In it, Whaley is calling the office of Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), using a fake accent and pretending to support the Senator’s decision.

“Notice how the woman on the phone admits Senator Corker seems to want mentally ill people to buy guns. And that she does not agree with him,” Whaley wrote on her blog on April 19. (Watch the full phone conversation in the video above.)

Read the entire story at huffingtonpost.com

The post Heather Whaley, Mom, Prank Calls Senator Bob Corker To Advocate For Gun Control (VIDEO) appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

by Meenal Vamburkar | 8:54 am, April 25th, 2013

Joe Scarborough is often angry from 6-9 a.m. on weekdays. Some days more than others. Count today among “some days.” Today’s edition of Scarborough Outrage was dedicated very specifically to Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND). Yes, they both voted against background checks.

In Ayotte’s case, Scarborough displayed a hint of schadenfreude as he pointed to the recent decline in the senator’s approval rating. Her re-election may not be imminent, he contended, but “when any politician is in the low 40s and then slips into the 30s, that stays on you.” He further posited that, perhaps, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who came out in support of expanded background checks, could persuade Ayotte into doing the same.

Scarborough’s real frustration was saved for Heitkamp — particularly in light of the polling that showed 94% of North Dakota supported the measure. Not even buying that a true six percent would be opposed, Scarborough ranted against Heitkamp for “cowering in the corner,” fearing calls to her office from the four percent who oppose background checks. She’s “not tough enough to handle” that?

Click to see entire report at mediaite.com

The post Scarborough Shreds Sen. For Caving To Minority In One Of ‘Saddest, Most Pathetic’ Votes ‘I’ve Ever Seen’ appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

by Samantha Ptashkin

TUCSON- It was the shout heard ’round the Senate chamber.

But January 8 shooting survivor Patricia Maisch says she wouldn’t take back her outburst after Wednesday’s vote on a gun control measure that would extend background checks. “I believe the senators that voted no, except Harry Reid, lost their souls that day,” Maisch says.

Today Maisch joined several other supporters of gun control outside Sen. Jeff Flake’s Tucson office. They showed their disappointment at Sen. Flake’s decision to vote “no” on the measure.

“Shame on you Sen. Flake, I can’t even call you our senator,” shouted Roxanna Green, mother of the youngest victim of the January 8 shooting, Christina-Taylor Green. “I didn’t vote for you and I never will. Shame on you! Who do you represent? You do not represent me!”

Later in the day it was a much different scene at Sen. John McCain’s downtown office.

Sen. McCain, along with three other Republicans and 50 Democrats, voted in favor of the measure. But it needed 60 votes to pass. “He reached across the aisle, knowing the political ramifications and chose to represent his constituents’ wishes,” says Lois Curti of Organizing for Action.

Many of the gun control supporters acknowledge stricter gun laws won’t stop every murder. “But if it can keep one child, or two children alive, that’s what we need to do,” Maisch says.

Read the entire story at kvoa.com

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We see the NRA has a stronghold on you. We see that you seem to care more about you’re a rating with the NRA than the public safety of our children and our citizens.

— Melinda Ennis, co-president of Moms Demand Action
for Gun Sense in America, Georgia chapter

Click to listen to the radio report.

ATLANTA — A local protest today in response to U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss voting with more than 40 other senators to defeat a Senate amendment to expand background checks for gun buyers.

Members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Organizing for Action expressed their dismay in front of the Senators’ offices. Melinda Ennis co-president of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America Georgia chapter.

“Please don’t say it’s because you support the second amendment. That explains nothing to us. This is about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.”

Ennis is confused about why the senators would vote against the measure despite polls which show widespread support for background checks.

Kimberly Brusk was also among those protesting and is concerned about what the votes will ultimately mean.

“I am disgraced. I am embarrassed that my senators did not have the courage to support a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown and at Virginia Tech.”

Brusk and others attending the rally say they plan to keep fighting for stricter gun control measures and if the Senators don’t listen to them they will work to defeat them in the next election.

See the entire report at wabe.org

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I hope [my] book provides an understanding of what it’s like to be in the middle of such a high-profile tragedy. I hope it convinces more people to become active in changing our gun laws and our social attitudes towards guns. I hope it provides a helpful glimpse of my experience to others who are dealing with grief. Finally, I hope [my] book succeeds in demonstrating how a father’s love for his son can drive him to demand change in the world around him.

Tom Mauser and his son Daniel.

April 20, 1999
Sometime around noon a coworker came into my office wearing a concerned look on her face. I was running late [to a meeting] and hoped her interruption was a brief one.

“You live in South Jefferson County, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And you have teenaged kids?”

“Yes.”

“And do they go to Columbine High School?”

“Yes,” I told her, “my son Daniel goes there.”

She urged me to come to the conference room, saying that something was happening at Columbine High School. I reluctantly agreed to join her. In the room, the television was on and ten or twenty people were gathered watching news coverage. Having employees watching news coverage was unheard of in our offices. It was fairly hushed, and all eyes were focused intently on the TV screen. On the news, helicopters were buzzing around. Police had surrounded the school. It was reported that shots had been fired. Shots were fired? How could that be?

Then the images of students fleeing the school grounds, and parents hugging terrified teenagers. Word must have gotten around that I had a child at Columbine. I sensed some people looking at me with concern.

A colleague dropped me off at home. When I walked into our house, [my wife] Linda was wearing a deeply concerned expression on her face. Questions started frantically flying between us. Where was Daniel? Why hadn’t he called? In what room would he have been when the crisis started? With the phone lines so busy, would he have been able to call? And if he had escaped, how would he be able to get home since he didn’t drive yet?

[After an anguish-filled day,] the doorbell rang at about 11:00 p.m. It was a sheriff’s deputy. He said he still had no definitive news. He said there might still be students in the school, but authorities would not enter much of the building because of the potential for more bombs. They hoped to be able to get more information and call us in the morning. Not until the morning? [In the middle of the night, both of us unable to sleep], Linda put her arms around me, and we cried together. We both had already reached the conclusion that Daniel might no longer be with us on this earth.

It wasn’t until late morning that a sheriff’s deputy and two victims’ advocates came to the front door and asked to speak to Linda and me. We all stepped into the living room. They didn’t beat around the bush. They gave us the news we so dreaded: Daniel was dead.

Daniel Mauser

Fourteen years after the Columbine massacre, there are still people who are unclear about what happened there. At 11:14 a.m. on April 20, 1999, Eric David Harris, eighteen, and Dylan Bennett Klebold, seventeen, walked into the cafeteria at Columbine with murder on their minds. They carried two large duffle bags, each loaded with a 20-pound propane tank bomb, and placed them on the floor next to some tables and walked away, assuming they and the two bags would be unnoticed in a sea of students and backpacks. Harris and Klebold proceeded to their cars in the parking lot outside the cafeteria. Their plan was to wait for the explosion and then shoot survivors as they fled the building. The killers waited with two shotguns, a TEC 9 handgun, a Hi Point 9 mm carbine rifle, and 76 homemade explosives. The two propane bombs did not detonate[,] as the killers had planned. Many can be thankful for that. But having failed to wreak death and havoc, they decided to use the guns and other explosives to kill their classmates.

At 11:27 a.m., the killers entered the hallway outside the library [having killed or wounded…]… At 11:29 a.m., the killers entered the library. Exact times of events are known because of the recording of [teacher Patty] Nielsen’s 911 call. [She was in the library and had ordered the students to get under the desks.] The killers shouted at the students to “Get up!” None of the 54 students rose. They fired one shot into the room as they entered, injuring one student. Then they shot and killed a student as they walked toward the west windows of the library. They shot out the windows as they took aim at the police and fleeing students. The police returned fire. It was like a war zone.

Then the library became an execution chamber, as the killers walked around taunting students, then shooting them. Some were shot and some were spared. Some who were shot were known to the killers. One spared student was in one of Harris’s classes but not a friend. Harris told him, “We’re killing people!” then asked him to leave. He did.

Near the end of the shooting spree in the library, Eric Harris approached Daniel, who, like the others, was hunkered down under a table. According to various reports from witnesses, Harris taunted Daniel by calling him a geek, and reportedly referred to him as “four eyes” because he wore glasses.

At 11:34:55 Eric Harris fired a bullet from the Hi Point Carbine. It pierced Daniel’s hand but probably was not life threatening. Daniel pushed a chair at Harris. Daniel paid for that act of defiance and self-defense, as Harris called out, “Get up!” and at 11:34:57 fired another bullet, this time into Daniel’s face. The bullet entered near his nose and traveled into his brain, likely killing him quickly. God rest his soul.

Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was murdered in the Columbine high school shooting, participated in the Silent March™ in Denver, and ever since makes it a point to wear his son’s shoes when lobbying elected officials.

The families of the victims were given the opportunity to listen to the recording. [More than a year later] I chose to do so. I felt compelled to listen so that I could hear the sounds Daniel heard in his last moments of life.

It was one of the most disturbing experiences of my lifetime, listening as two monsters terrorized a group of innocent students and took sinister delight in killing them. I could hear students crying out in shock, screaming “Oh my God!” and I could hear the killers crying out, “Woo!” and “Yahoo!” I could hear many of the shots fired. I sat in disbelief as I listened to the momentary, horrific sounds that marked the end of ten human lives.

I also heard the shots fired at 11:34:55 and 11:34:57. I sat there thinking of how that second shot ended the life of my son. Could there possibly be a more horrific, solitary sound that a parent might hear?

The killers obtained the weapons through a straw purchase at a gun show where no background check was required.

The Tanner Gun Show is a regular fixture in Denver, conducted a few weekends every year. Firearms are sold by both licensed dealers and private (unlicensed) sellers. The would-be killers examined guns and asked [Klebold’s friend, Robyn] Anderson to buy three guns they spotted. Two were shotguns, and one was a shorter gun, a Hi Point 9 mm Carbine. The killers assumed they needed Anderson to purchase the guns for them because she was eighteen and they were both seventeen at the time.

According to Anderson, the gun sellers should have known it was a straw purchase—a purchase by one person on behalf of another who is prohibited from making the purchase. She claimed it should have been clear because the killers were the ones who asked questions and checked out weapons.

Anderson purchased the firearms from a private seller, not a licensed dealer. She testified before a legislative panel that as she and the two boys walked through the gun show, Harris and Klebold “kept asking sellers if they were private or licensed. They wanted to buy their guns from someone who was private and not licensed because there would be no paperwork or background check…I was not asked any questions at all [she said]. There was no background check…I would not have bought a gun for Eric and Dylan if I had had to give any personal information or submit any kind of check at all.”

Robyn Anderson was not charged with a crime for transferring the three guns she had bought in a straw purchase for the Columbine killers.

Early in 1999 Klebold and Harris returned to the Tanner Gun Show. They met [two men], Philip Duran, a man they knew from the pizza restaurant [where they worked], and his friend, Mark Manes… Duran became the middleman in a deal to purchase an Intratek TEC DC-9 semi-automatic handgun from Manes. Because it was a handgun, rather than a long gun or rifle, it was illegal for Manes to sell it to minors, and illegal for Duran to act as middleman in arranging the sale. They would later be convicted and sent to jail for those crimes.

The killers [also] needed plenty of ammunition for their firearms. Harris ordered gun magazines (also known as ammunition clips) from a gun shop. In his journal he mentions that a clerk from Green Mountain Guns called his home. His father, who owned guns, answered the phone. When the clerk told the elder Harris, “Your clips are in,” he simply told the clerk he hadn’t ordered any clips. Eric wrote in his journal that his father never asked whether the caller had the right phone, and acknowledged that if either the clerk or his father had just asked another question or two, his plans might have been ruined.

On the day before the massacre, Harris rounded out their ammunition supply, picking up 100 rounds that Mark Manes had bought for him at a Kmart store for $25 – a purchase that would become a significant scene in Michael Moore’s documentary, Bowling for Columbine.

This essay is based on excerpts from Tom Mauser’s new book, Walking in Daniel’s Shoes. (Click here to buy the book.)

The weapons used

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed thirteen people and injured twenty-four using these guns: an Intratec TEC-DC9, a Stevens 311D double-barreled sawed off shotgun, a Hi-Point 9 mm 995 Carbine, and a Savage 67H pump-action shotgun.

Daniel Conner Mauser would have turned thirty years old this June 25. He was one of twelve students killed on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School. One teacher was also killed, and twenty-one students were injured.

The post From a Loving Father Who Lost His Son in the Columbine Massacre 14 Years Ago appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Shannon Watts, Founder
Phone: 404-580-3500
Email: media@momsdemandaction.org

(Indianapolis, IN) Wed., April 17, 2013 – Nearly four months after the tragedy that took 20 first-graders’ lives in Connecticut, the mothers of America are sickened by our elected leaders’ inability to enact bipartisan, common-sense gun reforms supported by 90 percent of the American people. Instead, more than 40 Senators chose to do the bidding of the gun lobby.

But we are not defeated. If this Congress will not protect our children and families, we will find one that will. We will look to our state legislatures to take up the mantle of common sense and pass new and stronger gun laws. And, beginning now, we will work to elect leaders who are responsive to the best interests of Americans and not special interests.

While we are appalled by the cowardice of the senators who opposed this bipartisan bill, we are buoyed by the energy and determination of our members, and the leaders who voted with courage. Among them Sens. Manchin, Toomey, Schumer, Feinstein, Collins, Reid, Blumenthal and McCain.

Today’s Senate vote only strengthens the resolve of American mothers who are rising up to fight the influence and power of the gun lobby in this country. In just four months, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America has grown from a single Facebook page into a movement representing more than 100,000 Americans with nearly 100 chapters in 40 states.

For the mothers of America, this is not the end. It is just the beginning.

Click here to see how each Senator voted.

About Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Much like Mothers Against Drunk Driving was created to change laws regarding drunk driving, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (www.momsdemandaction.org) was created to build support for common-sense gun legislation. The nonpartisan grassroots movement of American mothers is demanding new and stronger solutions to lax gun laws and loopholes that jeopardize the safety of our children and families. In just four months, the organization has tens of thousands of members with nearly 100 chapters across the United States.

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I’m tired of feeling hopeless, as though we’ve all given up, especially our lawmakers. Our differences may be great but that is no excuse to simply not try.

— Jamie Haynes, Virginia Tech. Class Of 2007

Virginia Tech students passed the flame of a memorial candle during a vigil Monday night. It was one of several remembrance events held on the Blacksburg campus in honor of the 32 students and faculty members slain on April 16, 2007.

By Jamie Haynes

Each year on April 16th I will remember the fear, confusion and anger. I’ll smile remembering the support of friends, family and the entire country. The emotional highs and lows will feel fresh, just as in 2007 when I was a senior at Virginia Tech. I’ll breath a sigh of relief at the end of the day and thank God for the many blessings in my life. But today felt different from years past and I struggled to figure out why.

Jamie Haynes, right, and her sister Heather are both working to impact gun safety legislation.

Then it dawned on me. What made April 16th so memorable was not the loss of life but the strength, courage and determination of the Virginia Tech community. The hope born from tragedy is what we choose to remember each year. But today, I didn’t feel hopeful. I felt let down, disappointed and frustrated.

I refuse to believe that we can’t do better. We are a people born from the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century, the survivors of a Civil War that pitted brother against brother, the visionaries of the Civil Rights movement. But today, we are failing miserably. Our children aren’t safe in their schools, our politicians won’t work together because they are too busy cozying up to the special interests bankrolling their next campaign. And we as a people can’t even have a civil debate about the issues tearing us apart at the seams without resorting to cheap name-calling and irrational fear mongering. Many historians have noted that our nation has never been so divided as it is today since the Civil War.

That dark period of our history prompted President Lincoln to remark, “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

When I realized that I had less hope for our nation today than six years ago when 32 of my classmates and teachers were senselessly slaughtered, I am forced to ask, where are the better angels of our nature? Are we so divided that we can’t come together on anything in order to make our nation a more perfect union? I simply cannot accept that, and neither should you.

I’m tired of feeling hopeless, as though we’ve all given up, especially our lawmakers. Our differences may be great but that is no excuse to simply not try. We have a saying at Virginia Tech, “live for 32.” Today and from now on, I will be trying to figure out how I personally can effect change, force our lawmakers to quit running from every hard fight, and to help all of us have a better, more informed and civil dialogue about our differences. That is how I plan to “live for 32” and the children of Newtown, and the people of Boston and every other victim of senseless violence and injustice.

I implore each of you to do the same, to listen to the better angels of your nature.

The post Virginia Tech Anniv. Inspiration — I plan to “live for 32” and the children of Newtown, and the people of Boston … appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

By Amy Wallace, The Buffalo News – Opinion

I have heard every argument in the gun control debate from gun rights activists, including the argument that criminals won’t follow new gun laws anyway, so why have them.

If that is truly the case, then why have any laws at all? The very nature of the word criminal is someone who breaks the law. So should we just abolish the laws against murder, rape and theft, too, if the criminals are just going to do what they want to anyway?

Our judicial system is there to work as a deterrent to future crimes. The system has its flaws, of course, but it is the reason we live in a civilized society and not chaos.

The next argument about taking away your Second Amendment rights is also unfounded.

The full text of the Second Amendment reads: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Why do so many leave out that first part of the sentence? Is it because they are not a well-regulated militia and they are not necessary in securing a free state?

Also, the argument that the rights in the amendment cannot ever be touched because it is in our Constitution is unfounded. There are limitations to many amendments in the Constitution.

In the First Amendment, free speech is subject to limitations for obscenity and speech that would incite violence. The Second Amendment already has limits as to bans on fully automatic weapons. Background checks are already in place in some form.

Click to see the entire story and local comments.

Amy Wallace is the Buffalo and Western New York chapter leader of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

The post Another Voice: Objections to reasonable restrictions don’t hold up appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Virginia mother of three Lori Haas is a mom on a mission. Her daughter Emily was shot twice in the head, but survived the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. Haas will not rest until hearts—and laws—have changed.

Lori Haas, mother of Virginia Tech shooting victim.

The Phone Call

It was April 16, 2007. Emily Haas was in French class in Norris Hall. A gunman had chained the doors of the building and had begun killing students and professors. Gunman Seung-Hui Cho burst into Emily’s class armed with two semi-automatic weapons.

When police arrived in her classroom, they found Cho dead on the floor, along with 11 innocent people he had killed. They began to rescue the wounded, including Emily.

When Emily was taken to a triage center, she called her mom.

“I was out shopping with my minister,” Haas recalled. “My phone was ringing off the hook. It was Emily and she said, ‘I’ve been shot.’”

Emily told her mom someone had opened fire in her classroom.

“My heart sank. I drove to Blacksburg going 90 miles per hour listening to the radio and just sobbing. The emergency vehicles were passing us. It was the most horrifying moment of my life driving to get her and knowing she was injured,” Hass said.

In Haas’ panic, she knew she was lucky to still hear her daughter’s voice.

“There were 32 other families like me, but they were going to pick up their dead children.”

Moving Forward

Two bullets had grazed Emily’s skull. While bleeding in the classroom, she stayed calm and kept police dispatchers on the line. Her emergency call was credited with guiding first responders to the correct location in the building. She risked being noticed by the gunman in order to get help to the right place. Her calm heroics while under fire have earned her praise from many people, including her mom.

“Emily was so brave that day. It’s hard to imagine what all the survivors must re-live occasionally,” said Haas. 

Emily was able to return to Virginia Tech and earn her degree. She is now a teacher and is married. While she does not often speak publicly about her experience in one of the worst mass shootings in history, her mom is front and center in the gun policy debate.

Haas is the Virginia organizer for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. She has also worked with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Virginia Center for Public Safety, Protest Easy Guns, and Mayors Against Illegal guns. You can find her sharing her family’s story on YouTube, and she has made countless media and conference appearances. She has no intention of stopping.

“The shootings at Aurora and Newtown just brought home to me that we need to do more work and better work,” Haas asserts.

Haas has many emotions that drive her. One of them is anger.

“My anger is directed at elected leaders. I find it appalling that we have allowed the gun lobby to lead the debate on public safety. I look to law enforcement to guide the discussion on public safety. We’d like law enforcement officials to be the lead spokesmen on the debate, not a gun lobby that is out to make money,” Haas said.

Haas believes the Sandy Hook tragedy will be a turning point due to the tender age of the victims.

“I can’t fathom six and seven year old children being killed. I just can’t fathom it. I am sickened and horrified at the level of carnage in this country. Thirty-four Americans are shot by guns every day. That’s a Virginia Tech every day.”

Haas has plans to meet with lawmakers to make the case for strengthened gun laws. Haas’ voice carries a lot of weight considering how close to losing her daughter she came. She hopes to leave an impression on lawmakers and others by sharing her emotions, and some persuasive statistics.

“We’ve had mass tragedy after mass tragedy.  Total gun deaths since the Virginia Tech tragedy are over 187,000. That’s sickening in just six years.  But, I think there is a segment of the population that is listening. Three out of four NRA members wants background checks for all gun sales. 82% of gun owners want better and more responsible gun laws. We hold the moral authority and our elected leaders need to listen to us.”

-Nicole Cunningham

The post Lori Haas, Mother of Virginia Tech Shooting Victim: “We hold the moral authority and our elected leaders need to listen to us.” appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

We keep ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ out of schools because of the bottle of wine in her basket. Why not assault weapons?

We ban the game dodgeball because it’s viewed as being too violent. Why not assault weapons?

We won’t sell Kinder chocolate eggs in the interest of child safety. Why not assault weapons?

Moms Demand Action announces new PSA campaign, “Choose One,” a series of print ads featuring assault weapons alongside other objects that have been banned in America to protect child welfare.

Share the need for common sense gun safety legislation by sharing this page on Facebook, by email or through your other social networks.

Click here to Fast-Tweet this photo campaign.

Click to WATCH OUR VIDEO: “How Many More Rounds?”

The post “Choose One” — Little Red Riding Hood or an Assault Weapon? appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

OKLAHOMA CITY – The group, “Moms Demand Gun Sense in America,” showed up Thursday outside U.S. Senator Tom Coburn’s office hoping their concerns would be heard.

They said some sort of gun control is needed not only here at home but across the U.S.
They are a small group fighting a big fight.

Member Jennifer Joy said, “We’re not trying to take guns away from responsible law-abiding gun owners. We are trying to keep the guns out of the wrong hands.”

The group was formed following the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy late last year.

Sabine Brown, another group member, said, “That was very personal to me because it was easy to imagine how that could happen to my child or happen anywhere across America.”

It’s a tragedy not only inspiring these moms but lawmakers.

Thursday action was taken on four measures at the State Capitol.

All four authored in reaction to the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting and all focused on keeping kids safe in our state schools.

Rep. Fred Jordan said, “As a state, we have a few core functions. The most important educating our children and providing public safety and these two go hand in hand.”

While the moms were hoping to get the attention of Sen. Coburn, they also want action on the state level.
Their fight is for expanded background checks.

Brown said, “We realize nothing is going to be a perfect solution but every life we can save is worth it.”

See the entire report at kfor.com

The post Oklahoma Moms Demand Gun Control Changes appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Pennsylvania Capitol dome

That all changed Dec. 14, when she got word of the massacre of 20 children and six staffers at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
“As the news unraveled, so did I,” she said at a news conference Wednesday. “I felt it was my kids.”

She drove to her children’s school to be sure they were safe, the first step in her transition to vigorous activism for gun control.

Ms. Licata is now a member of Moms Demand Action and took the stage in the Capitol with her 6-year-old daughter, Anna. She was one of several who called for a vote on legislation to close a loophole in Pennsylvania’s gun laws. At present, purchasers of long-barrel weapons like shotguns and rifles can avoid the background checks required of other gun buyers.

Rep. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bucks, sponsor of a bill to close the loophole, said polls have shown that 90 percent or more of the public, including an overwhelming majority of gun owners, favors comprehensive background checks.

Read the entire story at post-gazette.com

The post At Pennsylvania Capitol, groups calling to close loophole in gun laws appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

Moms Demand Action has launched a campaign to drive support for new and stronger gun laws in America in the aftermath of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The video, “How many more rounds?,” is an emotive depiction of the damage caused by gun violence and was featured on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show tonight.

The post “How Many More Rounds?” Featured On MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show appeared first on Moms Demand Action.

MOMS DEMAND ACTION FOR GUN SENSE IN AMERICA LAUNCHES NEW PUBLIC APPEAL CAMPAIGN LEADING INTO CONGRESSIONAL VOTE

Moms Demand Action has launched a campaign to drive support for new and stronger gun laws in America in the aftermath of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The video, “How many more rounds?,” is an emotive depiction of the damage caused by gun violence. An AR-15 assault weapon is fired in slow motion with each discharged shell casing representing a major shooting in America. The video ends with the message, “How many more rounds are we going to let this go on for?” along with a phone number to the Capitol switchboard.

The post NEW VIDEO: “How Many More Rounds?” appeared first on Moms Demand Action.