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At 10:05pm on Sunday, October 1, 2017 in Las Vegas, my life changed forever. As my then-fiancé and I swayed to Jason Aldean, we heard firecrackers. The awful noise erupted again and as a woman next to us dropped to the ground with blood on her leg, the darkening reality sank in that it was bullets—not firecrackers—spraying us. The music went silent and the screaming began.
Our country’s deadliest mass shooting was underway.
The chaos was unlike anything you could imagine. I’ve heard veterans compare it to being helpless on a battlefield with no way to fight back. All we could do was dive to the ground each time a new round of rapid gunfire sprayed us and run for our lives during the seconds in between.
In the end, more than 500 people were shot, and 58 were killed.
The other 22,000 of us, who were trapped as bullets sprayed around us, never knew when the nightmare would come to an end. For some of us, the terror still hasn’t ended.
Two years later, I still cannot comprehend how our country has allowed mass shootings to become normal. Thoughts and prayers are never enough. We must take action.
That is why I joined the Alliance for Gun Responsibility’s board—because I knew I needed to do my part to make sure we never have a new deadliest mass shooting.
I am encouraged that tomorrow, 10 leading presidential candidates are participating in a forum about gun violence in Las Vegas, giving this crisis the attention it deserves. That’s something I wouldn’t have imagined two years ago.
But we know how easy it is for our leaders to make empty promises and we don’t want to see this opportunity wasted. We’re calling on moderators to ask meaningful questions that reflect the true nature of the gun violence epidemic.
We want to know what YOU would ask the candidates about gun violence prevention.
Let us know your thoughts here.
As a victim of gun violence, I can’t “get over” what happened that fateful night. The only thing I can do is move forward. To me, moving forward means adding my voice to the chorus calling for commonsense gun responsibility measures to ensure that the lives lost and forever changed by gun violence are not forgotten. I hope you’ll join me.
Thank you,
Emily Cantrell
Alliance Board Member
PS - Tune in to tomorrow’s debate on MSNBC and follow along with us on Twitter @wagunresponsib
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