“A restaurant. A bowling alley. A night of family fun ended in tragedy. A 14-year-old, an advocate for the rights of the deaf, a father of five among the many victims. Children lost their parents. Parents lost their kids. All that is much too common in the United States today. As we try to understand the 565th mass shooting so far this year, as the manhunt continues in Maine and families shelter in place, our hearts break for all those affected, directly and indirectly, by this latest tragedy.  Our resolve to stop the gun lobby, end the guns-everywhere-culture, and end gun violence deepens as well.

“America’s moms understand hunting traditions are important to many families in Maine and across the country. Those traditions can be preserved without allowing the sale of weapons of mass destruction. They can be preserved without enabling unsafe and dangerous gun possession that rejects any guardrails around who has access to firearms. We need comprehensive gun policy reform now, starting with a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines! 

“Maine typically experiences unusually low rates of gun homicides, historically fewer than 20 per year. In just a few moments, the number of deaths in Lewiston exceeded that. We are heartbroken that the murders in one terrible night have shattered any sense of safety for Maine families and communities. We need to stop the sale of military-style assault weapons across the United States.”

-Statement of Gloria Pan, Gun Control Campaign Director, MomsRising

“America’s moms don’t want to raise our kids, live our lives, with this kind of violence always looming. There are mass shootings every week in this country. Carnage is everywhere. Guns are now the leading cause of death of children and youth.  This is unacceptable. We should not have to live with this terror. The ‘freedom’ to carry a military-style assault weapon into a bowling alley, restaurant, school, movie theater, or community does not count more than the freedom to live without fear of losing our children and our lives to high-capacity weapons.

“The United States has become a nation defined by mass shootings. But this kind of senseless violence is not inevitable. Moms want Congress to pass sweeping gun policy reform, beginning by restoring the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Ending gun violence is an all-hands-on-deck emergency in America. If the lawmakers we elected won’t take care of this problem, moms will elect lawmakers who will. The status quo is intolerable.”

-Statement of Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and CEO, MomsRising