‘Freedom to Live Without Fear of Gun Violence’ Takes Center Stage at DNC

The Democratic Party has put combating gun violence at the forefront of its campaign, with the issue given primetime exposure on the final night of the party convention in Chicago on Thursday, as survivors and relatives of victims took to the stage to tell their stories. 

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was one of 13 people wounded (another six were killed) in a 2011 shooting while meeting with constituents outside a supermarket in Tucson and has since become an advocate for gun control, recalled how Joe Biden “checked in” on her consistently as she recovered. “Joe is a great President,” she said. “Kamala will be a great President. She is tough. She has grit. Kamala can beat the gun lobby. She can fight gun trafficking.”

Preceding Giffords at the convention stage was Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), another gun safety advocate with a personal connection to the issue: her 17-year-old son was shot dead in 2012. 

“Our losses do not weaken us,” McBath said on stage, surrounded by a group of survivors and relatives of other victims. “They strengthen our resolve. We will secure safer futures that we all deserve. We will organize, we will advocate. We will run for office, and we will join with Americans from small towns and big cities to keep our communities safe, and we will elect leaders like Kamala Harris who won't just empathize, but will act.”

Abbey Clements of Newton, Conn., spoke on surviving the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. “I carry that horrific day with me: 20 beautiful first-grade children and six of my beautiful colleagues were killed,” Clements said. “They should still be here.”

Kim Rubio of Uvalde, Texas, whose 10-year-old daughter died in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022, said: “Parents everywhere reach for their children. I reach out for the daughter I will never hold again.”

Melody McFadden of Charleston, S.C., whose mother Patricia Ann Geddis was shot and killed by her abusive partner, and whose niece Sandy PaTrice was killed in a 2014 shooting in Myrtle Beach, said: “Ten years of waiting, and Sandy's murder is still unsolved. I’ll keep calling and I'll keep fighting.”

Edgar Vilchez of Chicago, Ill. who witnessed his classmate get shot in a drive-by shooting in 2022, said: “They say schools are for learning, and I did learn a lot that day. I learned how to run, how to hide and drop. That what happens in the news can happen to me. But I learned something else too, that we can write and must write a new story if we choose to.”

Wrapping up the segment on gun violence was a video that reasserted the campaign’s theme of “freedom,” in this case the freedom “to live without the fear of gun violence.” The clip featured Harris supporters touting how the Vice President will be a gun safety champion: “I have full confidence in Vice President Harris,” one said, “that she’s dedicated to and committed to finding a solution to end gun violence.”

The Biden-Harris Administration signed the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant gun safety law in decades, created in 2023 a first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention—which Harris was tapped to lead—and has implemented a number of executive actions, including to crack down on so-called “ghost guns.” Meanwhile, “protecting communities and tackling the scourge of gun violence” is one of nine chapters in the DNC’s 2024 platform passed this week, which pledges that Democrats will establish universal background checks, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage for guns, end the gun industry’s immunity from liability, pass a national red flag law, and increase funding for law enforcement and health research into the crisis of gun violence and the potential for community interventions.

Correction, Aug. 23
The original version of this story misstated what happened to Edgar Vilchez’s classmate. He was shot, but not killed.