VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – How many tears will fall before another person with at least one weapon will add another city to the list of locations: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Virginia Beach Uvalde, UVA, and more where entire generations are scarred by mass death and destruction?
Sue Loesberg and Pat Gadzinski, members of the Virginia Beach chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, are demanding that lawmakers from Richmond to Washington make gun laws that make sense.
“It’s happening in churches, it’s happening in a concert hall, movie theaters, everywhere,” Loesberg said.
10 On Your Side first introduced viewers of the Virginia Beach chapter of Moms Demand Action hours after three children and three adults were gunned down by a former student at a Nashville school. The scenes outside the school shook the nation.
The next day, the scenes captured inside the school revealed heroism in response to a barrage of problems that once again, landed in a space for children.
They said it looked like being in a war zone.
“American schools are war zones,” Loesberg said.
The war at home has many asking, if not Nashville, then what will it take change gun laws that in recent years, say the moms, have moved in the wrong direction.
“Right now lawmakers are gutting gun laws as [the number of] death by guns are rising and our children are going through this every day,” Loesberg said.
The moms support President Joe Biden’s renewed call for a ban on assault weapons. The 28-year-old Nashville woman who opened fire in the school she attended as a child was armed with three guns, including a semi-automatic rifle.
“The only function of an A.R. 15 is to shoot faster-more people,” said Loesberg.
This year, Moms Demand Action pushed for the passage of a bill in the General Assembly that would require gun owners in homes with children to properly secure their weapons and ammunition, and another bill called for a $500 fine if a gun is left in an unlocked unattended vehicle.
Both bills were passed by the state Senate, but fell flat in the Republican-led House of Delegates. The moms are demanding action.
“If you are afraid and you are tired of this and you want gun owners to properly store their firearms, if you want background checks, if you want to have commonsense gun legislation that will protect our children,” Loesberg said, “you need to get in touch with your lawmakers and tell them that you are heartsick and that this is happening yet again and it’s going to continue happening until they make real change.”
