Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
Beto O'Rourke You are in the O'Rourke 2020 Group. Only members who have selected Beto O'Rourke as their preferred Democratic presidential candidate are permitted to post in this Group.

TexasTowelie

(111,304 posts)
Tue Oct 15, 2019, 11:43 AM Oct 2019

Beto O'Rourke's Campaign Found New Meaning in the Gun Debate. But Is He Hurting the Cause?

DENVER—Tom Sullivan, a Colorado state lawmaker whose son, Alex, was killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012, met Beto O’Rourke one cloudless morning in September and, inside a glass-and-brick office building in downtown Denver, introduced him to several other people whose friends or relatives had been killed in mass shootings.

They were seated at a table in a third-floor conference room of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, beside a largely untouched basket of bagels and a box of Starbucks coffee. Jane Dougherty, whose sister Mary Sherlach was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, brought up the moment, at a presidential debate in Houston the previous week, when O’Rourke had said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

“I think I was jumping around in my family room, because my sister was murdered by an AR-15,” Dougherty said.

Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave, was killed in the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, where he was a teacher, said she had rushed toward the television in her living room, hurting her head on a door jamb before sitting down on the floor and watching in disbelief. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Sanders said. Brandon Kellogg, a student at Columbine during the massacre, said that, sitting on his couch watching the debate that night, he cried.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/15/beto-orourke-gun-debate-229849

Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»O'Rourke 2020»Beto O'Rourke's Campaign ...