With NRA in town, mothers call for gun control
Soon after their 24-year-old daughter Jessica Ghawi was fatally shot inside an Aurora, Colo., movie theater in 2012 by a gunman who killed 12, her parents joined the fight for gun control.
"It's been hell,” mother Sandy Phillips said. "But we had no choice. We had to. If this could happen to us, we’re all one degree of separation from this happening."
She has visited Louisville a number of times for her job in the tourism industry. But she and her husband Lonnie’s visit this weekend was to speak out as the National Rifle Association held its annual meeting in town.
“We’re here as kind of a counter balance to the NRA’s presence,” Lonnie Phillips said. “We want to show, you know, we’re gun owners. We’re not here to take anybody’s guns. We want some reasonable laws for the benefit of the public’s safety.”
The Phillipses were featured in a documentary “Under the Gun” by journalist Katie Couric that was shown Saturday to a group of more than 100 at an event hosted by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, an organization that works for universal background checks, safe gun storage and other gun-related issues.
NRA in Ky: 'They sing, everybody sings along'
Shannon Watts, who founded the group in Indianapolis a day after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, said the organization regularly has events in cities with NRA events to make sure a counter message is heard.
“I believe the emotion and the passion of women in this country is the very obvious counter to the extremism and nihilism of this very small group of vocal gun extremists,” Watts said.
She contends her organization’s aim is "common sense” and that she and fellow advocates aren’t seeking to strip citizens’ of guns.
“It’s the leadership that has gone amuck,” Watts said. “They are afraid, mistakenly, that their gun rights are going to be taken away. We’re afraid our children are going to be taken away.”
Pastor Joe Phelps of Highland Baptist Church led the crowd – mostly women – in prayer for victims of gun violence.
Last year in Louisville, more than two-thirds of homicide victims were killed with a gun.
The city’s latest police data show there were 150 fatal and non-fatal shootings in the first four months of this year, up 40 percent over the same period last year and up 257 percent from that time in 2011.
Joan Dubay of Louisville, who attended Saturday's event, was left looking for words after the documentary screening. The retired kindergarten and first grade teacher said while she would never own a gun, she wants laws that work to curb gun violence.
"It's an issue that really weighs heavy on me,” she said. “It’s very emotional.”
Reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at 502-582-4989 or mglowicki@courier-journal.com.
