Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.
Those are the concluding words of
A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip, a powerful op ed in tomorrow's
New York Times by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.
By now many here perhaps know about it - from Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, or if you have seen mention of it in Good Op-Ed By Gabby Gifford @ NYT by Publius2008, who in a comment wrote
Kinda hoping someone will do it justice
with a full blown diary. If they do, I will take this down.
I hope the diary will remain up, and that people will give Publius tips and recs for having notified us.
I read the diary.
I decided to use whatever visibility I may have here to try to draw attention to it, to encourage others to reading, to go to the New York Times and pass on the link to others.
If you do that, you can stop reading now.
If I have not yet convinced you, please keep reading.
One has a sense of what the power of this piece will be from the opening paragraph:
SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.
Throughout the language is direct, pointed, powerful.
Allow me to offer a number of small snips:
...a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation...
These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.
We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.
I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated.
I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.
She talks in detail about her late aide, Gabe Zimmerman, who ran towards the gunfire to try to help and died in the process.
There is so much more.
If you have a Senator who voted against this minimal attempt to make our country safer, if you have a Congressman who would vote against such measures,..
- take this op ed and put it on their Facebook oages
- print it out and mail or fax it to their office - do it to the district office so it gets there immediately
- underline the part that says
I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote.
and add the words "That's true for me!"
Read the piece.
Pass it on.
Thanks.