Democratic Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia made an impassioned plea for Congress to act on gun violence, citing the shooting of her son.
Ms McBath’s words came during the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on various pieces of gun legislation after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas killed 19 children and two adults. Ms McBath said she could empathise with parents in Uvalde who learned their children died.
“The phone call that confirms our fear, our singular fear that my child is dead, that I was unable to protect them” she said. “Because I know that phone call. Parents across the country know that phone call. It’s a sucker punch to my stomach every time I learn there’s another phone call.”
In 2012, Michael Dunn shot and killed Ms McBath’s son Jordan Davis, who is Black, at a gas station in Jacksonville after he told Mr Dunn, who is white, told Mr Davis to turn down rap music. Mr Dunn was later convicted of killing the 17-year-old.
Ms McBath described the questions that go through parents’ minds when someone shoots and kills their child the way Salvador Ramos did when he killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
“Was my child afraid? Did he feel the pain as the bullets ripped through his skin?” she said. “How long did it take him to die? Was it quick or did he suffer?”
The committee is holding a markup on a series of gun legislation that will likely pass the House but faces little chance in the Senate.
Ms McBath also related her son’s death to that of the shooting in Buffalo, where a white supremacist allegedly opened fire in a supermarket, killing ten people and injuring three, with most of the victims being Black.
“The same racially-motivated violence that took my son, that murdered ten Black Americans in Buffalo, is being replayed with casual callousness and despicable frequency.”
