Mother of Pulse Club Victim Christine Leinonen Presses Gun Reform at DNC
Christine Leinonen, who is the mother of Pulse Club victim 32-year-old Drew Leinonen, gave an emotional and tear-streaked national plea for, “reasonable,” gun reform during her speech before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, July 27, 2016.
On Saturday, June 11, 2016, 49 people were gruesomely massacred at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by killer Omar Mateen when entered the club with a foldable, but very powerful assault rifle and began firing indiscriminately. For 3 hours on that hellish night in Orlando, Mateen stalked the club, held hostages, negotiated with police and barbarically slaughtered human beings. Mateen, who was known to frequent the Pulse club he ultimately terrorized before being killed by police, also wounded and injured another 53 people.
Leinonen expressed in a moving and stately speech talked about her son, her family history and the heartache she feels because a vastly destructive weapon, the AR-15 assault rifle, a weapon of war, is very easy acquire and buy in the U.S.A.
Leinonen remarked to the DNC assembled audience that, “The weapon that murdered my son fires 30 rounds in one minute…one minute for a gun to fire so many shots.”
It is doubtful that any traction will be achieved on the gun reform issue in the foreseeable future. House of Representative Democrats staged a short-lived sit-in stunt earlier this summer to force a definitive vote and public discussion on the issue of gun troll and gun reform. The stunt called short-lived attention to the issue, but ultimately proved fruitless.
Hopefully Leinonen’s earnest and heartfelt appeal will inspire thought. But that may be part of the problem.
Too many people want to offer thoughts, condolences, well wishes and moments of silence.
As Leinonen states, she wants reasonable gun reform. The United States is a gun culture. No one can take away your right to own a gun. But unless you are military, police or a similar vocation, who needs an AR-15 assault rifle?
Why allow such a weapon to be sold so easily in a world where the value of the life of a person who affirms themselves with an LGBT identity, even in the U.S.A, can prove to be very cheap indeed.
Mass killings occur in pre-schools and movie theaters and governments offices. Someone losing their mind and killing everyone with purview is a phenomenon that we have decided to live with in lieu of substantial gun reform or control. For the moment.
Orlando was different.
The life of a gay man or lesbian woman or the transgender person you know but who may scare you is just as precious as your own.
But we live in a world that says otherwise. Omar Mateen provided a blueprint for people who view LGBT as non-human. And gun laws so lax and nonsensical that anyone on a no-fly list can’t fly but can still get a gun will only enable another such massacre to happen sooner than later.
Let’s hope people in authority are swayed by Leinonen’s word.
