“Mom, there’s a shooter here. I love you!”
You never think it will be your child. But “never” happens every day, and it happened to me on January 6, 2017.
My daughter was hiding in a bathroom at Fort Lauderdale airport, texting me after a mass shooter unloaded a semiautomatic pistol from his checked baggage and came out shooting. In only 70 seconds, he would kill five people and injure six more.
My daughter was not in the baggage claim, but in the chaos after, she hid in a locked stall along with others, expecting the shooter to arrive and take her life at any moment. She survived, but as a mom, I was changed forever, knowing any one of my three children could come face to face with a gun in the wrong hands.
We should not have to live like this. I found a way to channel my fear into action with my local Moms Demand Action chapter, where we work to enact red flag laws and background checks for every single gun purchase. I will never stop using my voice for gun sense.