Uvalde, TX is where I was born.
Swear my
my mom taught kindergarten less than a mile from Rob
Elementary.
Uvalde is where I learned to master a Daisy
DB Gun
took that took two years before I graduated to a
410 shotgun.
Uvalde is where I was taught to Revere
the power and the capability of the tool that we
call a gun.
Uvalde is where I learned responsible gun ownership.
Now Uvalde called me on May 24th when I learned
the news of this devastating tragedy.
I had been out of cellular range,
working in the studio all day when I emerged,
and messages about a mass shooting in the town I
was born in began flooding my inbox.
In a bit of shock,
I drove home. I hugged my
children a bit tighter and longer the night before
and then the reality of what had happened that day
in the town I was born in,
set in.
So the next morning Camilla and myself,
the kids would load up the truck and we drove
to You Valley.
When we arrived a few hours later,
I got to tell you even from the inside of
our vehicle,
you you could, you could feel the shock
in the town,
you you could feel the pain
that is there that we met two of the grieving
parents,
Ryan and Jessica Ramirez,
their 10 year old daughter
Alethia.
She was one of the 19 children that were killed
the day before.
Now, Alethia, our dream was to go to art school
in Paris and one day share her art with the
world.
Ryan and Jessica were eager to share Alethia's art with
us and said if we could share it that somehow,
maybe that would make Aletha smile in heaven.
We also met Anna and Danila,
the mom and the stepdad of nine year old Maite
Rodriguez
and Maite wanted to be a marine biologist.
She was already in contact with Corpus Christi University of
A&M for her future college enrollment.
9 years old
Maite cared for the environment so strongly that when the
city asked her mother if they could release some balloons
into the sky
in her memory, her mom said Oh no
mate, they wouldn't want to litter
mate. They wore green high top,
converse with a heart She had hand drawn on the
right toe because they represented her love
of nature. These are the same green converse
on her feet that turned out to be the only
clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting.
How about that?
But we heard from we heard from so many people,
right? Families of the deceased,
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, Texas Rangers,
hunters, Border Patrol, and responsible gun owners who won't give
up their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
And you know what they all said?
We want secure and safe schools and we want gun
laws that won't make it so easy for the bad
guys to get these damn guns.
We need a waiting period for those rifles.
We need red flag laws and consequences for those who
abuse them.
These are reasonable, practical, tactical
regulations
to our nation, states, communities,
schools and homes. So we're asking you,
and I'm asking you, will you please ask yourselves?
Can both sides rise above?
Can both sides see beyond the political problem at hand
and admit that we have a life preservation problem on
our hands?
So we got a chance right now to reach for
and to grasp a higher ground above our political affiliations.
A chance to make a choice that does more than
protect your party.
A chance to make a choice that protects our country
now and for the next generation.