Will Orlando Be Our Breaking Point?

I would be lying if I said that I was shocked or even surprised at the horrific news that came out of Orlando early Sunday morning. As a former assistant district attorney, lawmaker, father, and citizen it pains me to admit that with everything I have experienced and fought for regarding gun violence prevention, that I too have become desensitized. Desensitized to the news that 49 innocent people were murdered and another 53 were injured in a senseless act of discrimination and hate.

It pains me that we could have and more importantly we should have done something to prevent it. We should have done something to prevent the pain of the families who now mourn the loss of their loved ones, the pain of those who continue to fight for their lives, and the pain of those who are entering the beginning stages of long and painful recovery process, physical and mentally.

It pains me that our elected officials in Congress continue to fail to bring a substantive piece of gun violence reduction legislation before them, let alone take a vote on the matter. The fact that they allowed the federal assault weapons ban to expire, allowing the legal purchase of high-grade assault weapons such as the AR-15 which was used in Sunday’s mass killing, is not only cowardly but borderline criminal.

In Massachusetts we continue to fight to combat gun violence. We recognize and work together on the complexities that surround gun ownership from access to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to the incessant modifications by the gun manufacturers aimed at dodging our banned weapons lists. But it is not enough. Until we come together as a nation to address the issue of gun violence, these tragedies will continue.

We must come to terms with the fact that our inaction made the tragic events of Sunday morning our reality. We must come to terms with the fact that it was only a matter of time before we witnessed the worst mass shooting in our country’s history and we must come to terms with the fact that if we continue to choose inaction it will only be a matter of time before it happens again.

What will be the breaking point that will force us to come together and demand change? It wasn’t the murder of 13 high school students in Littleton, Colorado at Columbine High School, or the slaughter of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut and I doubt it will be the massacre of 49 people in Orlando.

And so we wait. Wait for a collective movement of courage and morality in our Nation to take over and say “we’ve had enough”. Enough of witnessing our children die in the streets every day as they fall victim to gun violence across the country. Enough wasted time labeling and diagnosing the shooter in order to distract ourselves from the real issues that surround gun violence. Enough of giving into the falsities that surround the notion that gun ownership is a protection when those who own firearms are statistically more likely to be a victim of gun violence themselves. Enough with the inaccuracy of the claim that gun ownership laws are a violation of Constitutional Rights.

What about our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The fear that the next mass shooting could be tomorrow, in our neighborhood, against our loved ones, is a fear we have created through our inaction. This fear violates our basic human rights and yet we still sit idly by.

We must stand together and take back our freedom, our freedom to live our lives free from fear. I ask you to join with me and call upon Congress to give us back our freedom by demanding effective gun violence prevention laws in America.

We must take action to prevent the next mass shooting as our inaction holds us all responsible.