Robert Kesten - We Need Action No Photo Ops

Over the past few weeks our community has been shaken by the Parkland school shooting, a snow-wind-ice storm, knocking out power in the middle of winter and the constant diversional tactics of the Trump-Republicans in Washington and Albany. Like you, I am angry at indiscriminate access to guns that murder innocent children. I’m angry that our electric companies have not made necessary improvements and investments needed to get our towns, villages and cities up and running quickly after a major storm and eliminate the power outages that happen because of old and inadequate equipment.

We cannot allow our elected officials to divert our attention from these events. We cannot let photo-ops replace real action. We have a right to be angry.

On March 14th, at the New Castle Town Hall, we will hold our fifth Town Hall meeting of this campaign. There we will discuss gun safety and the US Constitution. We are at a crossroads moment and we will not be derailed or sidelined. We will not take “no” for an answer and we will make schools, malls, workplaces and all other public and private facilities safe for all Americans.

I will not think of Parkland as just another mass tragedy, another moment when we are asked not to cast blame, a moment to falsely wrap ourselves in the protection of the Second Amendment.

Reading about this deadly assault while sitting in a suburban New York high school 9th grade class, not so different from the one in Florida, I felt the anger of a parent, a teacher, a human being well up inside me.

It is time we called out the people whose negligence and fear make it impossible for our nation to address a serious healthcare crisis, gun violence. Republicans, to ensure campaign funds, will not allow the collection of data related to gun tragedies, that again, took the lives of America’s children.

There is no more room left in our hearts for these senseless massacres. Those who refuse to discuss safety and ending these brutal deaths, those who extend a prayer for those killed yet silence those who work to ensure it never happens again, must accept blame for this never-ending saga of killings, murders, slaughter in our schools, houses of worship and communities across these United States.

There is not one man who signed the US Constitution or voted for the Bill of Rights who envisioned this constant carnage, this reckless use of weaponry in our towns, villages and cities. The cowards amongst us are not the brave mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers of those felled by bullets, but those who refuse to pass legislation to limit access to guns, those who will not put restraints on gun ownership, those who will not institute safety precautions to make weapons less likely or able to take innocent lives.

Americans are waking up every day to a government unwilling to put people first, we are taking one election at a time, changing the composition of state and local offices, and in November we will defeat, these cowards one by one at the polls and we will protect our families and our schools from violence that could have easily been stopped generations ago.

The people will vote and those who died will not have died in vain.

Read more about Robert Kesten and where he stands on the Issues at www.ElectKesten.com