Jennifer Longdon - A Progressive Activist
What you'll see in the video: Jennifer Longdon is featured, in a wheelchair in her kitchen and her living room. She recounts the shooting that killed her fiance and left her paralyzed from the chest down. A real estate agent, she discusses her determination to increase modified housing stock for people who need accessible housing accommodations.
Transcript [transcribed by moi]
Priscilla (narrator): Imagine your life changing in the blink of an eye. For Longdon it became a reality.
Jennifer: It was about six and a half years ago and I was riding along, holding my fiance’s hand, and we pulled into a parking lot of a restaurant. Another vehicle came up behind us and sideswiped us, and fired 5 random bullets.
Priscilla Walsh: Longdon was shot in the back. A 911 call she placed that night still comes to mind.
Jennifer: He was dead, and I was dying, and please tell my son I loved him.
Priscilla: Longdon suffered a spinal cord injury leaving her paralyzed from the middle of her chest down, though this obstacle isn’t stopping her from moving forward with her life.
Jennifer: It’s not going to win. I will find a way to overcome whatever the obstacle it.
Priscilla: Working to stay active, she is now able to cook, and get back into the swing of things, along with one other daily goal.
Jennifer: I just try every day to do some little thing that makes the world a little bit better.
Priscilla: And that’s exactly what she’s doing as a real estate agent advocating around modified housing.
Jennifer: … so that houses that have been modified for accessibility have real value and hold that value, just like any other home.
Priscilla: Over four hundred homes across the valley, just like the one I’m standing in now, have been sold due to Longdon’s decision to create more accessibility for the disabled. Longdon says she doesn’t know that she is any different than any other person with a disability. The one thing that keeps her going is her son.
Jennifer: I always hope that one day he’ll look back and he’ll think that I did a good job. - Priscilla Walsh, Cronkite News
Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women by Mark Follman for
Mother Jones on May 15, 2014.
As Jennifer Longdon steered her wheelchair through the Indianapolis airport on April 25, she thought the roughest part of her trip was over. Earlier that day she'd participated in an emotional press conference with the new group Everytown for Gun Safety, against the backdrop of the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. A mom, gun owner, and Second Amendment supporter, Longdon was paralyzed in 2004 after being shot in her car by unknown assailants, and has since been a vocal advocate for comprehensive background checks and other gun reforms.
As Longdon sat waiting for her flight, a screen in the concourse showed footage of the press conference. A tall, thin man standing nearby stared at Longdon, then back at the screen. Then he walked up to Longdon and spat in her face. No one else blinked.
[...]
After a fundraiser one night during the program, Longdon returned home around 10 p.m., parked her ramp-equipped van and began unloading herself. As she wheeled up to her house, a man stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed in black and had a rifle, "like something out of a commando movie," Longdon told me. He took aim at her and pulled the trigger. Longdon was hit with a stream of water. "Don't you wish you had a gun now, bitch?" he scoffed before taking off.
[...]
"I've been about as broken as I can be by gun violence," she says, "so I'm just not going to be afraid of it again."
The majority of gun owners in America are good people, she adds. "I wish that more responsible gun owners would step into this conversation and say 'Look, those guys don't speak for us.'"
[my underlining]
… Continue reading Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women
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Daily Kos gun owners, what can you do to help all of us take a stand against violent rhetoric, stalking, and threats of murder?
Updates - Further Reading
10:01 AM PT We just republished a thoughtful article on stochastic terrorism, Stochastic Terrorism: Triggering the Shooters, from 2011 by G2geek.
Published this morning: Happy Mother's Day Threat from Florida Gun Instructor
3:38 PM PT: Published this afternoon: Triggering the Trigger by Karen Hedwig Backman
7:33 PM PT: Published this evening "Thugs with Jugs" - Death Threats, Insults, Gun Rights Advocates Targeting Women by Rachel191
Sat May 17, 2014 at 11:58 AM PT: Thanks everybody, for participating in our discussion of intimidation tactics and implied threats. Incitement to violence is an established legal principle but there seems to be no agreement on what the phrase "stochastic terrorism" even means. Using it may even confuse people we are trying to persuade. I suggest that intimidation and implied threats are more specific and adequate to the task.
Thu May 22, 2014 at 2:01 PM PT:
Two rebuttal diaries have been published by Hugh Jim Bissel and G2geek.
Stochastic Terrorism - A Rebuttal and An Apology
Stochastic Terrorism - G2geek Replies
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We have adopted Wee Mama's and akadjian's guidance on communicating. But most important, be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle.
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