Gun Safety

June 13, 2013

Like so many other Americans, I remember exactly where I was when I learned about the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. I was home that day in Richmond when my phone rang. It was Lynnette Alameddine on the line. I could tell immediately she was in tears...

MomsRising Together

Lori Haas

Gun Safety

June 13, 2013

Love is powerful thing. Just ask Sen. Rob Portman, who put himself at considerable political peril by embracing gay marriage after learning that someone he knows and loves is gay. It is in this light that his recent vote to block common-sense gun violence prevention legislation is so profoundly...

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Caren Benjamin

Gun Safety

June 13, 2013

I lost all 3 of my sons within 6 years to senseless gun violence. I have no other children of my own. I have been trying for over 20 years to spare other families from experiencing the pain and suffering that I have. I have marched, had vigils, spoke in Washington, Albany, and other cities and...

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Frances Davis

Gun Safety

June 13, 2013

My Newtown moment came in 1999 as I sat at the funeral of my former basketball coach, Dave Sanders. He was murdered along with 12 students at Columbine High School. It was an overbearingly sad service as I hugged former teachers, faces red and swollen from days of crying. Just like the teachers at...

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Heidi Yewman

Gun Safety

June 13, 2013

When I was ten years old, my parents made the decision to start their own business—a bodega (a small Latin grocery store) in Little Havana, FL. After years as an introverted child, this Cuban stomping ground was where I first came out of my shell. I played with neighboring children, went to...

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Jeannina Perez

Gun Safety

June 13, 2013

I am a mom from Newtown, and my younger daughter is six years old. Before December 14, 2012, I would have described myself differently: political moderate, high school science teacher. But in the six months since that terrible day, when 20 of my daughter’s peers and six of her teacher’s colleagues...

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Katherine Morosky

Gun Safety

June 12, 2013

On November 28, 2012, my life changed forever. I lost my youngest child – a son – to gun violence. He was 26-years-old, married, and had a two-year-old daughter with another little girl on the way. I don’t know all the details surrounding his death, only that he was leaving a corner store in...

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Marilu Garcia

Gun Safety

June 12, 2013

In the third chapter of Genesis, after the proverbial “Fall” of humanity, two brothers stand in a field. Cain is a farmer—Abel, a herdsman. Both bring offerings from their labor to God, but Abel brings his first fruits, so God looks on Abel’s offering with delight. In a jealous rage Cain rises up...

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Lisa Harper

Gun Safety

June 12, 2013

We can make America safer. But first, we need an honest conversation about the unacceptable current level of gun violence; and we must acknowledge that reducing firearms injuries and deaths is our shared responsibility. Too often, our values of liberty and safety are pitted against one another...

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Steve Gutow

Gun Safety

June 12, 2013

I vividly remember the day my son was born, almost 24 years ago. A fleeting, but frightening thought seeped into my hopes and dreams for my beautiful baby boy—“How will I keep you safe from going to war?” The Vietnam War, with images of killing fields and the gruesome draft was the reality of my...

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