Newtown Parents Take Over President's Address, Call for Gun Law Reforms - East Idaho News
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Newtown Parents Take Over President’s Address, Call for Gun Law Reforms

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121412 NewtownShooting8?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1365818117273DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — In a first-of-its-kind White House event, President Obama has ceded his Weekly Address mic to a ‘civilian,’ Francine Wheeler, mother of 6-year-old Ben, who was killed along with 19 other children and six adults in the Newtown, Conn. school shootings last December. Wheeler, joined by her husband David, is asking Americans to help prevent tragedies like the one that happened at her son’s school from happening to more families.

“As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not the president. I’m just a citizen,” Francine Wheeler says. “And as a citizen, I’m here at the White House today because I want to make a difference and I hope you will join me.”

Speaking about her family’s personal experience in the aftermath of the mass shootings at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, Wheeler says that even if “the tidal wave of anguish our country felt on 12/14 has receded,” to her family, “it feels as if it happened just yesterday.” Since then, she adds, “[T]housands of other Americans have died at the end of a gun. Thousands of other families across the United States are also drowning in our grief.”
 
“Please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy,” Wheeler says in the address, asking listeners and viewers to call their representatives in Congress to push for change.

“We have to convince the Senate to come together and pass commonsense gun responsibility reforms that will make our communities safer and prevent more tragedies like the one we never thought would happen to us,” she adds.

“Help this be the moment when real change begins.”

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