Letters to the Editor: September 5 – 11, 2019

Save Lives, Pass Universal Background Checks

Editor,

Last month, I went to my first Moms Demand Action Meeting and joined the McLean/Falls Church/Vienna Chapter in advocating for gun violence prevention. Upon being seated, an organizer handed me a postcard and asked if I would like to write to Mitch McConnell and ask for universal background checks. I took the card and wrote “Mitch, please approve universal background checks and bring S.42 to vote in the Senate” but held on to it, thinking that I would hand it in at the end.

About halfway through the meeting, after going through all the introduction info for the organization, the speaker played a video from a recent conference, shot right after word of the El Paso shooting. On screen, a Mom, whose son was shot in the back 17 times, stands on stage, tears streaming down her face screaming, “Am I mad? Yes. Am I sad? Yes. But will I give up? No! I will not give up, I will fight!” At that point, I was fighting, but it was against myself and it was to keep from crying; struggling to compose myself as men and women around me sniffed, some openly weeping.

I continued to battle my composure through the rest of that meeting, and at the end when it was time to return my postcard it said, “Mitch, you hear our pleas for safety, and you ignore us. We are moms, fathers, daughters and sons. We are people, and you are killing us. You can make a difference by passing universal background checks and you choose not to. Mitch, make the choice to save lives.”

Olivia Bravo

Via the Internet

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