On Sunday, whereas many people slept, a gunman opened fired on a bus in a College of Virginia parking zone and killed three college students: D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr. Two others have been injured. College students throughout the campus sheltered in place for nearly 12 hours whereas an intensive manhunt ensued and eventually ended when the suspect was taken into custody with out incident. The incident marks the 598th mass taking pictures this yr and the second college taking pictures in Virginia in 2022.
Polls present that gun management was one of many 5 prime points for voters throughout final week’s midterms. It's clear that persons are bored with being afraid of mass shootings they usually confirmed it by reelecting each senator who co-sponsored the federal assault weapons ban invoice.
This doesn't shock me. As an anti-gun activist, I've been lobbying for a federal assault weapons ban ever since my 6-year-old son and I survived a mass taking pictures earlier this yr after a person opened hearth with an AR-15 at our hometown’s Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, killing seven individuals and injuring over 40.
On a brisk however sunny Wednesday afternoon in September, I sat in a gathering surrounded by a small group of gun violence victims, survivors and activists. We have been gathered in a circle of seats within the private workplace of GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
He was seated proper in entrance of me with solely two ft of scorching air between us and nothing else.
We went across the room introducing ourselves, and the senator was cordial. His face was appropriately sympathetic. He regarded every of us within the eye as we spoke. He nodded alongside somberly as I instructed him about working with my 6-year-old son from a mass shooter.
After the introductions concluded, we requested for the senator’s help for a federal assault weapons ban.
Kim and Felix Rubio, the dad and mom of Lexi, who was murdered at Robb Elementary College in Might, had traveled all the best way from Uvalde, Texas. Felix confirmed the senator a photograph of their 10-year-old daughter in her casket. The senator checked out it stoically after which he regarded on the pained faces of the Rubios as he instructed them that his answer to high school shootings was to place extra cops in faculties.
The power within the room shifted immediately. It was palpable. Some members of our group gasped. Others began crying. Sandy Phillips, the mom of Jesse Phillips, who was gunned down in a movie show in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012, walked out of the room in disgust. Shock and disbelief hung heavy within the air over every of us as somebody blurted out that 376 regulation enforcement officers stood by and did nothing to avoid wasting the 19 kids and two academics who have been brutally slaughtered in Uvalde.
They did nothing to avoid wasting Lexi.
On Oct. 24, nearly six weeks to the day of that assembly, a faculty taking pictures in St. Louis grew to become the fortieth college taking pictures this yr.
As particulars emerged, it was reported that the shooter had a dozen 30-round magazines with him and he used an AR-15-style rifle. Identical to the shooter in Uvalde. Identical to in Highland Park. The varsity had steel detectors, the doorways have been locked and there have been safety guards.
It didn’t matter.
Even the police couldn’t stop this college taking pictures ― the household of the shooter had requested police to grab the weapon that will later be used to kill 16-year-old Alexzandria Bell and bodily training trainer Jean Kuczka. Police confiscated the weapon however “decided at the moment the suspect was lawfully permitted to own the firearm.” The AR-15-style assault weapon was returned to a 3rd social gathering recognized to the household. It's not recognized how the shooter regained possession of the firearm.
Ted Cruz was silent on Twitter. However gun violence prevention advocates weren’t. As a result of we all know that police and safety guards and locked doorways don’t stop college shootings. Even faculties with their very own police power just like the College of Virginia can’t stop mass shootings.
Whereas we don’t know what sort of gun was used within the Virginia taking pictures, we do know the one factor that can stop nearly all of mass shootings and college shootings is banning assault weapons. Knowledge proves it. Through the assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004, the probability of being killed in a mass taking pictures decreased by 70%.
The straightforward entry to weapons of warfare is what's killing our youngsters. Proper now, an 18-year-old who will not be sufficiently old to purchase alcohol or a handgun can legally purchase an assault weapon. Assault weapons have been designed to kill as many individuals as attainable within the shortest period of time. The taking pictures my son and I survived concerned an AR-15. In lower than 50 seconds, the shooter in Highland Park shot nearly 100 rounds right into a crowd of households. He stopped to reload twice. In Uvalde, some dad and mom had to make use of DNA to establish their kids as a result of bullets from an assault weapon are highly effective sufficient to liquefy an individual’s organs.
These are weapons of warfare and they're getting used many times to homicide our youngsters within the one place they need to really feel protected ― in school. And that isn’t the worst of it. A Washington Publish database on college shootings experiences the variety of kids uncovered to gun violence in faculties for the reason that 1999 taking pictures at Columbine Excessive College is 320,000.
What are we doing?
A federal assault weapons ban would have prevented the bloodbath in Uvalde and it could have prevented the killing of a 16-year-old lady and her trainer in St. Louis. Please don’t wait till your loved ones is touched by gun violence to get entangled. Assist go a federal assault weapons ban by calling your senators right now through the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Ask them to help the ban after which vote to elect gun-sense candidates.
Sadly, I imagine it’s not a matter of whether or not your life shall be touched by gun violence however when. The clock is ticking ― don’t let it run out on your loved ones.
A consultant for Cruz emailed the next assertion to HuffPost in regard to the senator’s response: “Sen. Cruz was in Uvalde mourning with the group the day after the taking pictures and later met with family members of the victims. Following this tragedy, Senator Cruz launched laws and fought to enact reforms that will double the variety of college useful resource officers, rent 15,000 school-based psychological well being professionals to make sure there may be early intervention to establish and assist at-risk children, present important assets for enhanced college security, and to enhance the gun background system and prosecute individuals who attempt to illegally purchase weapons. Sadly, Senate Democrats blocked it with no clarification by any means.”
Ashbey Beasley is a proud Indigenous spouse and mom, a serial entrepreneur and a mass taking pictures survivor turned activist.
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