“The world changed for us a little bit as members. I encourage everyone across America to pray for our nation,” Representative Jeff Duncan (R-SC) said in the wake of the shooting during a Congressional baseball practice in Virginia.
Watch here via CBS News:
"The world changed for us a little bit as members. I encourage everyone across America to pray for our nation," Sen. Duncan says pic.twitter.com/eDHCa0AMk7
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 14, 2017
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Representative Gabby Giffords was shot in the head in 2011 during the heated “Obamacare” healthcare debates.
This kind of violence shouldn’t be happening, it dampens the access to politicians and the idea of a free country. It is terrorizing and terrifying. It leaves a person in a state of shock and disbelief that often morphs into an inability to feel safe anywhere, because of the randomness of it.
What happened today was beyond wrong. Democrats responded by saying there weren’t Democrats or Republicans today, which is as it should be.
Senator Chuck Schumer said in his statement, “I was with Senator Paul in the gym, who had been there, and he told me had these two Capitol Police officers who were part of Congressman Scalise’s detail not been there it might have been a massacre cause there would have been no one to respond. Their bravery is exemplary of all Capitol Police force and we thank them.”
But it’s also important for Congressional members whose understanding of the world changed today to realize that gun violence also impacts their constituents just like this, except without the Capitol Police.
Ninety-three people a day are shot on average in our country. On average there are 12,000 gun murders a year. Seven children and teens are killed with a gun on average every day. Three women a day are killed by an intimate partner, and their chances of dying increase when he has access to a gun. On an average month, 50 women are shot to death by an intimate partner.*
This is why people are crying for gun control. This is why people are begging Congress to listen to them.
What are young children and women to do, faced with a parent or partner with a gun aimed at their head? They have no Capitol Police to come to their aid.
In fact:
Suspected shooter James T. Hodgkinson was charged in 2006 with assaulting his girlfriend. Police discovered a shotgun at that scene. pic.twitter.com/mLHztyeatO
— Militia Etheridge (@MaryEmilyOHara) June 14, 2017
Representatives have been insulated from the terror facing their constituents.
We as a nation must take action before more things like this happen. We must not wait for it to happen to our people before it matters.
It’s important to draw attention to the fortunate fact that none of the victims were killed today because of the Capitol Police. But in our country, victims are murdered every day like this. Just like this. Their families’ world changed a long time ago.
They need a voice in Congress, they need to be heard, their lives need to matter.
Gun violence statistics from EverytownResearch.Org
Image: Screencap via CBS News
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