RALEIGH, N.C. — Gun control advocacy groups across the U.S. are mobilizing in the aftermath of the Texas school shooting.
March for Our Lives, a youth-led organization founded in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, is planning a protest in Washington, D.C., on June 11. And North Carolina groups are organizing, hoping to enact change, as well.
The Latino community in the Triangle is grieving with the people of Uvalde. Almost 90% of Robb Elementary School’s students are Hispanic. Fierce Mamis is a politically engaged group of Latina moms. They’re ready to take action to hopefully prevent another tragedy like this from happening again.
Virginia Torres Eme, a member of Fierce Mamis, is heartbroken over the Texas shooting. Torres Eme, who has a 4-year-old daughter, says she couldn’t sleep last night.
“It felt personal,” Torres Eme said. “When you see all the faces, and you hear all the names, and they’re all from the Hispanic community, they’re all little brown kids. They are names that you may have tias [aunts] in your family with the same name. It resonates so much on a deeper level with you.”
Torres Eme is a first-generation American, born to parents from Nicaragua. She and the other mamis are grieving for young lives cut tragically short.
“It was heartbreaking, gut-wrenching,” Torres Eme said. “Being a Latina mom, or just a mom, period, is knowing that you’re going to drop off your kid at school and the possibility that you may not see them again is surreal, sad, it’s the worst thing that can happen to you as a mom.”
The group is ready to fight to protect children in schools. Their plan is to reach out to U.S. senators through phone calls and letters and demand they take up a vote on gun control legislation.
“No one gets things done faster than moms,” Torres Eme said. “What’s most important to us, gathering all those moms, making those phone calls, those mamis that are registered voters, seeing how available they are. It can be as simple as a text, follow this link, it’ll connect you to your senator’s office, or having our kids write letters, getting the youth involved, which is our future, teaching them that they can be a part of the change.”
Torres Eme says she feels a sense of urgency because she doesn’t want to see another school shooting. The Fierce Mamis are also organizing on the state level to push lawmakers on Medicaid expansion, which would help North Carolina schools get more funding to devote to mental health services for students and teachers.
When the Parkland, Florida, shooting happened in 2018, Torres Eme was working as an assignment editor for a local news station in Miami. She remembers seeing the horrific images of the students running out of the school. But for her it’s not about coming for peoples’ guns. She wants what she calls sensible gun reform.
According to a poll conducted by POLITICO in the wake of the shooting in Uvalde, 88% of people said they are in favor of background checks. And 67% of people responding said they want to ban assault-style weapons like the AR-15 used in Texas this week.
Torres Eme says it’s been four years since the outcry for change came from Parkland students, and she’s upset we still haven’t seen meaningful change.