And I think we need to hold our lawmakers accountable in different and more creative ways. This country has to have a really hard, tough, honest conversation about its obsession with easy access to firearms. And it begs the question that I asked in that Oprah Daily piece: What are we doing? Why haven’t we been able to solve this? Why are we so paralyzed by the gun lobby and gun manufacturers in this country? Why are we so paralyzed by the sort of rhetoric and talking points that have frozen us, that we can’t just sit at a table and say, “Our kids deserve better”? We should be able to send our children to school so they can learn math and reading and science, not so they practice hiding under their desks, all so that one day a man can charge through the front door and end it all. One died on an operating table, and the other never made it off the dance floor.Īnd so, my initial thought or reaction to what happened in Texas is heartbreak, but also anger and rage, because no one should have to live through what I lived through six years ago. And it took us over 36 hours to learn the fate of my best friends Drew and Juan, but, ultimately, they took 19 of those rounds. It’s been referred to as the AR-15 of the future. The man who perpetrated that violent and heinous act at Pulse was carrying a SIG Sauer MCX. Then, of course, that safe space was invaded. Pulse was one of those spaces where I felt like I could be me, without fear of violence or discrimination. And so, we created safe spaces for one another. For me, growing up, home was not always a safe space. For LGBTQ people and especially LGBTQ people of color, there are not safe spaces in the same way that there are for others. And it’s important to note that Pulse was one of the safest places I knew. I was washing my hands at a bathroom sink when gunshots rang out at Pulse nightclub. And so, my heart breaks for folks in Uvalde, their families, their friends, who will never be the same. And it’s always especially painful when we’re talking about children, because the last six years have been really hard for those of us in the community, especially those who lost someone. It is really painful to go through this over and over again. Where were you that night? And then talk about when you heard about what happened in Uvalde and what you think needs to happen.īRANDON WOLF: Yeah, I appreciate that. So Why Haven’t We Stopped It?”īrandon, first I’m going to say condolences, because we haven’t spoken, and I am sure you relive this all the time. ![]() He wrote a piece for Oprah Daily after the Uvalde massacre headlined “Gun Violence in America Is a Solvable Crisis. He is now press secretary for Equality Florida. Now as the Pulse nightclub attack’s sixth anniversary approaches, survivors held a vigil for the victims of the Uvalde massacre.įor more, we go to Orlando to speak to Brandon Wolf, Pulse nightclub massacre survivor, now a gun safety and LGBTQ civil rights advocate. Survivors say they faced a three-hour wait for police to respond and that some of those who died may have lived if they had gotten help sooner. ![]() Many of those killed were young Latinx members of the LGBTQ community. Like, we need to leave.”ĪMY GOODMAN: That was six years ago. And I could just smell the ammo in the air, and I was like, “This is a gun. And then he’d like change, put another ammunition, brrrrrrrr, and then change, put another ammunition. REPORTER: Was it rapid fire? Was it single shots? JANIEL GONZALEZ: He just kept on shooting and shooting and shooting and just walking around. Witnesses described scenes of the terror inside the club. Brandon’s best friend Drew was among the 49 people killed in the attack, which came in the middle of Pride Month. We’re coming up on the sixth anniversary. history, when a gunman opened fire on the dance floor of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Our next guest, Brandon Wolf, survived the second-worst gun massacre in recent U.S. ![]() I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.Īs police in Uvalde, Texas, face harsh questions and a federal investigation into how they apparently waited almost an hour to get a key from a janitor before moving in to kill the shooter, other survivors of mass shootings have been speaking out about the pattern of delays. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!,, The War and Peace Report.
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