Gun violence claimed my son; we can spare other parents my grief
The love we have for our children is an all-consuming love. A love so strong we often feel helpless with all the fear that comes with it, the moment of panic a lost child brings at the grocery store or the brief bit of terror when their laughs in the living room turn to cries.
It’s the crisis that we dread. The phone call that confirms our fear – our singular fear – that my child is dead, and I was unable to protect them.
I know that phone call. Parents across the country know that phone call. It is a sucker punch to the stomach. A phone call that brings you to your knees when the desperation will not let you stand, that leaves you gasping for air when the agony will not let you breathe.
On Black Friday in 2012, my son, Jordan, stopped at a gas station with his friends to pick up some chewing gum. A man pulled up next to them, complained about the loud music they were playing and pulled out a gun. He fired 10 rounds at the car, hitting Jordan and killing my only son.
For days and months and years after, you cry out to God in your grief.
Why I ran for Congress
“Was my child afraid? Did he feel pain as the bullets ripped through his skin? How long did it take him to die? Was it quick, or did he suffer?”
The death of your child is a crisis. It is sorrow in your marrow and grief in your soul.
Parents can move forward, but they never fully heal.
A decade later, and we are now more than a month into the new year. Already, there have been more than 65 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which describes mass shootings as one in which four or more people are injured or killed.
In California, 18 people were fatally shot within 48 hours just in January.
What did the extreme, radical Republicans say? Well, they said, “Democrats never waste a crisis.”
“We never waste a crisis …” as though we are “using” the deaths of American families.
I ran for the U.S. Congress because I refused to sit silent while our children are being murdered in our streets, slaughtered in our schools and killed in our communities.
Jordan was just 17 when he was killed. I had dreamed of who he would become. I dreamed of watching him walk at his high school graduation, filled with excitement for college, hope for his future and dreams for the world that only a teenager can have.
It took our family multiple trials to get a conviction in 2014. But that was not the end of my fight – it was only the beginning.
On the steps of the courthouse, I made a promise to Jordan, to his community and to the American people. I promised that I would take all of that devotion a mother has for her child – all the love that poured out of my soul and in my tears – and that I would do everything in my power to keep Jordan’s community safe.
Jordan’s killer took my son’s life, but he could never take his legacy. This would not, and could never be, the end of Jordan’s story.
Every survivor has a story, and all those from Newtown, Connecticut, and Uvalde, Texas, to Florida’s Parkland to the Pulse nightclub are being accused of “using” the deaths of their loved ones.
Grief is not a political ploy
Is that what we’ve been doing? Because I know that each and every day, survivors across the country are fighting through the pain of a murdered child to save the children of others. We know the problem. Unregulated guns are the problem – it could not be any clearer. Gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States, and each day 12 children die from gun violence.
Every year, more than 45,000 Americans die from this epidemic, and access to a gun dramatically increases suicide risk.
It is simple. Without easy access to unregulated weapons, these murders do not happen, these families do not grieve, and this nation does not mourn.
And we’ve done the work to achieve the solution.
Do we have the courage?
Last year, legislation I championed to fund and expand red flag laws became law. These laws give loved ones and law enforcement the tools to get guns out of the hands of those who pose a danger to themselves or others.
House Democrats have passed universal background checks, because every gun sale should have a background check.
We’ve passed an assault weapons ban, because no one needs weapons designed for mass human lethality to protect themselves.
We have solutions that will keep our communities safe. Gun violence is the challenge of our lifetime and the issue of our era, and we must have the courage to act.
The courage to act now to save American lives, to solve this crisis of conscience – and we cannot waste another moment.