April 24th marked 20 years since the night I became a survivor of gun violence. This past weekend sent me back to the night that changed my life and took the life of my dear friend Philip. It was Saturday night and we were on our way to a party — probably not so unlike the seemingly ordinary Saturday this past weekend at a Wal-Mart in Texas or outside a bar in Ohio.
22 people have now been confirmed dead and more than two dozen injured in El Paso, Texas. Barely 13 hours later in Dayton, Ohio, 9 were killed, and more than two dozen injured. Then, in Chicago, within an hour of the Dayton shooting, someone in a passing car opened fire on people in Douglas Park, wounding seven. Communities are grieving the many lives taken by gun violence — more than 100 everyday — but we have little time to process our loss before we are hit with news of another incident of gun violence day after day after day.
Hate, rage, racism, white supremacy, and misogyny exist in combination with our country’s lax and deadly gun laws. Many of us -- especially women, communities of color and other marginalized groups -- feel like walking targets. Make no mistake, gun violence is a women’s issue, too. Did you know that women in the U.S. are 11x more likely to be murdered with guns than women in other high-income countries? Most mass shootings in the US are related to domestic or family violence.
But I will never give up on my belief that we can and must create a country safe from gun violence and neither should you.
Last night I attended a vigil in Brooklyn with dozens of survivors impacted by gun violence. Seeing us all in the crowd with our hands raised was a powerful call to action. We have a duty to do something now for those who can not.
We must come together to make real change. The time is NOW. We demand that Congress return to work in DC and take urgent action on the national crisis of gun violence.
We know Congress will respond with their usual thoughts and prayers. It’s on us to demand our elected officials take action now to pass meaningful gun reform legislation that does not come with strings attached to harmful immigration policies. We must make sure legislators do not conflate hate and mental illness and we must demand our elected officials listen to the people and not the NRA.
Our people are dying. Enough is enough. #EndGunViolence #SenateVoteNow
In community,
Kim Parker Russell
Women’s March Staff
Sent via ActionNetwork.org.
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