[1]Ruben Gallego for Arizona

Friends -

Yesterday afternoon, an 18-year-old armed with an AR-15 and wearing body armor, forced his way into an elementary school and murdered 19 children and a teacher.

And for much of the night, I wondered why in this country, do we allow 18-year-old kids to buy a weapon that I used in war?

The AR-15 and other variants were designed to copy our military weapons, with very slight differences that we never really use in combat.

These weapons are designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly and efficiently as possible. That is what every piece of these weapons is designed to do.

As usual, politicians like Ted Cruz offered their thoughts and prayers, as if the thoughts and prayers they’ve offered for the past 20 mass shootings have worked to stop these killings.

Others on the far-right talked about mental health, as if they haven’t voted against expanded mental health coverage through Medicaid expansion, Obamacare, and Build Back Better.

And others, like Senator Sinema, who is one of the few people in this country who could end this carnage by breaking the filibuster to pass commonsense gun laws, offered hollow condolences.

Will passing universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, limiting the sale of high capacity magazines, and better red flag laws stop every mass shooting?

No, of course not.

But they will save tens of thousands of lives a year while protecting people’s constitutional rights.

So what can you do now?

Of course, our hearts and sympathy are with the families and the community of Uvalde, Texas that will never ever be the same.

But there are organizations who are fighting to make our communities safer from gun violence every day — when this issue is in the news, and when it is not.

One of them was started by our home state Senator Mark Kelly, and his wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords shortly after the shooting at Sandy Hook.

If you can, please consider making a donation to their lifesaving work today. Especially today. You can do that here.

Please make a contribution — of whatever amount you can — to Gabby Giffords’ gun violence prevention organization. Let’s all do what we can to help change our gun laws.

CONTRIBUTE TO GIFFORDS: [link removed]

Thank you,

Ruben Gallego
 


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