Content Warning: This email discusses gun violence. If you are not in a position to engage with content on the subject, please click away now and take care of yourself.

Hi Jack,

First and foremost, I’m just a parent trying to do the best I can, like so many of you. 

This Fourth of July we decided to go to a community event as a family.

As we were getting ready to go, one of my teenagers was scrolling Twitter and mentioned the shooting at the parade in Illinois. 

I started to shut it down, because I didn’t want to scare my littlest kids.

Then I remembered they do active shooter drills and are taught to pick up staplers and throw them at intruders. These aren’t new conversations for them – so we talked about it, rallied, and got out the door.

I think a lot of people at the event were a little on edge. When I got home, I learned about the second shooting in Philadelphia and saw the horrifying video of a crowd running from a shooter as fireworks lit up the sky. 

I read accounts from parents who drug their toddlers through that madness. 

I started questioning how I was at a massive event with my whole family without a solid plan, and then I lay awake thinking about what our plan would look like if we found ourselves in a terrible situation. 

There’s no way we could all stay together if we were in a stampede. We’d need a buddy system.

Of my kids, I know who would be most scared. But I’m not strong enough to carry him.

I think the only child I could carry for an extended amount of time would be my youngest. Then I’d need my husband and my older teenager to pair up with the second and third youngest. My two boys in the middle would stick together, and we’d come up with a meeting spot. I *think* that could work.

But hear me out: What if instead of having parents, students, families, friends, and individuals come up with safety plans to survive things like community events, school, or the grocery store, we elected leaders who cared more about living, breathing humans than guns?

At this moment, I don’t have all the answers to what specific laws could have prevented these two shootings on Monday, but I do know that we have created a culture in America that values guns more than people. 

We can elect leaders willing to act and pass comprehensive background checks, close loopholes, and enact extreme risk protection orders that would help save lives. 

There is so much we could do. So what I’m doing, as a mom, is running for office because I’m sick of this. I’m trying to encourage other people to run alongside me. Later this month, I’m going on a weeklong tour to get more women in Arkansas to run.

Because we don’t have to live like this.

We can do better. 

In this together,

Kelly