25 Years After Columbine: A Father’s Journey To Honor His Son and End Gun Violence

Daniel oh Daniel I'll just share a personal note with you cuz I I have to do it cuz I always do it I have to tell you about [Music] Daniel you common for people to say to ask me you know why is this happening in our schools and I say well the answer is simple because it's happening out there you know it's in society it shouldn't be a big surprise that it's in our [Music] schools Daniel was 15 he was a sophomore a Boy Scout piano player what I most admired about him was that he uh he took on his weaknesses he was not at all athletic and yet he joined the cross country team at at Coline he was extremely shy he chose on his own to join the debate team at Coline and was one of the better one of the better Debaters they had and in fact that's what really inspired me because I'm also I'm more introverted that I'm extroverted it's difficult for me and yet I had to take that lesson from him that you know he he took that step so I have to take that step you know and that's my way of honoring him D Roosevelt's first inaugural address on given on Saturday okay we're going to edit that out L dad just two weeks before the shooting at Coline my son Daniel brought up something he had heard in his debate class just in conversation he said dad did you know there were loopholes in the Brady Bill Brady Bill is the law that requires background checks and I just kind of blew it off I said no I didn't know about that Daniel two weeks later he was killed with a gun that was purchased through a loophole in the Brady Bill so I became very vocal um I spoke at a rally against the NRA um that was having its National Conference in Denver 10 days after coling by and that that was the start of my my new life but the time has come to come to understand that a tech 9 semi-automatic 30 bullet weapon like that that killed my son is not used to kill deer it has no useful purpose I became a lobbyist uh for one year after the year after colum Bine they try to change our laws in Colorado and when the legislature refused to change our laws uh we took one of those particular bills closing the Gun Show loophole the one that played a role at at Coline and we took it to a vote of the people we never expected this would happen to us and the the law passed by a vote of 70% to 30% we closed the Gun Show loophole in Colorado [Music] you can tell people this is the right thing to do but it doesn't necessarily go that way you have to work at it and work at it it's it's not there's no quick fix you've got to start someplace and you have to have hope that there's going to be change and that doing nothing will mean no change not one more student lost to gun violence not one more teacher that has to defend their students against an assault rifle not one more news alert of a mass shooting at America and not one more tweet from NRA bot politicians giving us their thoughts and prayers now we've seen for 5 years we've seen students really speaking up and and I think it's just so important you know my generation failed you know we failed to do something about this younger generation could be the one that says you know we don't want to live like this we can't we can't just go on like this we're tired of this and we want to see change so that that's that's the main thing that makes me hopeful right now really I also honor him with the my shoes his shoes these are the shoes that he wore that day same shoe size as me so that you know that that's what really inspired me to um you know continue on this path is doing it for him walking in his shoes [Music]

Channel: Center For American Progress

Views: 4,040

Keywords:

Id: OW-ynFb8Ixk

Length: 4min 48sec (288 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024