Dear John,

Over the weekend, Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were assassinated in their home in the middle of the night. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also targeted—thankfully, they are awake and are continuing to receive care at the hospital.

Our hearts are with their families, their loved ones, and communities across the state. Both Melissa and John supported gun safety measures, and Melissa was a partner and friend to GIFFORDS. 

This was a horrifying act of political violence by a shooter—impersonating a police officer—with a hit list of lawmakers and figures with ties to the abortion rights movement. But this shooting didn’t happen out of the blue. Political violence has become more frequent, more brazen, and more dangerous—and this rise has been accompanied by an increase in firearm access.

Political violence is all too familiar for us at GIFFORDS. In 2011, our namesake, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, survived an assassination attempt that changed her life forever. In the years since, the number of violent threats against public officials has increased, and recent data shows that Americans are growing increasingly tolerant of—and even willing to use—violence to achieve political ends.

More often than not, firearms are used in the most serious threats of political violence. In order to protect those who serve our democracy, we must address the role that guns and weak gun laws play in this crisis.

One of the most important ways we can honor those we’ve lost is by ensuring tragedies like this never happen again. That’s why at GIFFORDS, we’re recommitting to our mission to save lives from gun violence—and to ensure that those who shouldn’t have guns can’t access them. We hope you’ll stand alongside us.

—Laura

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Laura Cutilletta
Vice President
GIFFORDS Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence