Maneul Oliver, who lost his son in the 2018 Parkland shooting and attended his second State of the Union this week, found Republicans’ disgusted reaction to President Joe Biden’s speech not only “offensive” but also a bad example for the rest of America.
“That room represents what’s going on also, on a daily basis, in our society ... but in this particular event, you have a small universe of that reaction,” he told The Independent. “Where I was sitting down, I could see the body language of these members of Congress that, in our opinion as a country, they should be working together, [but were] not agreeing on most of the issues that President Biden was addressing.
“So that creates a lot of frustration, because these are people that I’m trusting to fix my main issue, which is gun violence, and they are sending me a message with their body language ... that they are not willing to move on. There’s a whole internal debate; in the meantime, there’s people dying. That’s my concern.
“So I wish I could see more coalition inside that place. And I did not see that.”
Mr Oliver has been a vocal - if not creative - advocate for gun reform since his son’s death, the fifth anniversary of which takes place next week. On last year’s anniversary, he was taken into police custody after climbing a crane near the White House in protest; five months later, he was escorted off the property after challenging the president as he spoke about new gun reform measures.
“I’m not the best person to advise people not to interrupt the president, but you know what? I’m not a member of Congress,” Mr Oliver said, speaking to The Independent from the airport the day after Marjorie Taylor Greene and others heckled President Biden during the State of the Union (for a second year in a row). “I don’t know if they’re trying to find some camera moments; I don’t know why they do that. It is [not] respectful, because they do work together, they are co-workers. And they should have some limits in that place.
“And you don’t want to send that message [of] non-agreement to the nation. While I was here, I visited some of the members that were wearing the pins with an AR-15 shape, and that’s offensive, so that’s pretty much the same.”
Mr Oliver said: “I understand disagreements on financial issues; we can all have our own thoughts around taxes and increasing taxes, or if it’s going to hurt the economy or not, we can disagree.
“But when it comes to gun violence, this is an epidemic that’s randomly killing people you. Nobody’s asked if you’re a Democrat or a Republican before being shot. So I really expect that we will agree on the fact that we don’t want innocent people dying because we are giving easy access to guns to everyone. I would love that to be the conversation. Where is it? Where’s that common ground, that we all agree that kids in schools should not be shot by a guy that just purchased an AR-15 legally?”
He said: “It frustrates me that we don’t have an agreement, we don’t have the same position to defeat gun violence. At some point, it’s even offensive and disappointing. Because, I mean, I’ve had conversations with some of these members of Congress and Senate during these two days ... surprisingly, there’s an effort to go against what I do, what my wife [is doing], what millions of American kids are trying to achieve, which is preventing gun violence. There’s resistance to that.”
While the majority of his ire was reserved for gun reform, Mr Oliver - who was a guest of 26-year-old Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida - also believes that the current administration can do more to save lives.
“It was a powerful speech,” Mr Oliver said, ”[but] was kind of weak when it comes to sending a strong message that will prevent gun violence, which is the reason why I was in that room. So I appreciate the tone that the president used when he called to ban assault weapons. That’s exactly the tone that I’m looking for from a leader. That’s the tone that will motivate other families, like my family, to keep on doing things. The content of the tone was not enough.
“So I will say that, besides being an honor, being invited by Maxwell, my personal friend and congressman, in Orlando, it’s also I mean, I’m an eye witness of what was of the reactions from all members, while the president was speaking, these are things that you don’t watch on TV. And we are incredibly divided as a nation, at least inside that group.”
He said that he was “glad that I was there, because I’m an eyewitness of what happened, in terms of people screaming, people reacting; I saw everything.”
After attending a second State of the Union as mass shootings continue to plague America, Mr Oliver was also slightly cynical, calling it “another speech, and it will be another president or the same president and new people giving these speeches ... a lot of concern on financial issues, a lot of concern, which shows that, yeah, this is a country [where] money really matters, but lives? That’s something that we can discuss later. We don’t need to put an urgency on that matter.
“And I think that’s not fair. I think that the most important right that my son had was being alive.”
