‘THIS COULD HAPPEN HERE’
Advocates push for gun bill
Parents who lost children to mass shootings joined advocates for a rally against gun violence at the State House yesterday, where a fired up Attorney General Maura Healey joined them in calling on Congress to tighten gun restrictions in the hopes of preventing the next massacre.
The rally was scheduled prior to Wednesday’s tragedy in Parkland, Fla., where a 19-year-old gunman stormed his former high school with an assault rifle and shot and killed 17 people. It was originally intended to push an “extreme risk protective order” bill that would let family members, caregivers and judges temporarily suspend a person’s gun purchasing power if they’re deemed a threat to themselves or others.
Advocates were quick to point out that Nikolas Cruz, the suspected Parkland shooter, may have told people close to him about his deadly intentions.
State Rep. David Linsky, the author of the extreme risk bill, said that even with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, the Bay State is still susceptible to a mass shooting like the one that unfolded in Southern Florida.
“This could happen here,” the Natick Democrat warned yesterday. “Parkland could have been Plymouth.”
Greg Gibson, 73, of Gloucester, whose 18-year-old son, Galen, was gunned down during an attack at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in 1992, agreed with Linsky and stressed, “We can save lives with sensible laws.”
While addressing the crowd, Healey, who blasted Congress’ “cowardly” response to mass shootings like the one in Parkland, told those in attendance, “This isn’t the America that I grew up in, that my brothers and sisters grew up in, that our parents grew up in.”
“I want to be clear about how important it is that more states do what Massachusetts has done,” Healey said, “and that Congress finally step up and do what they’ve been all too cowardly to do, and that is to take action for the sake and the well-being of our children and parents across this country.”