283,608
total hearts received for Moments That Survive

Dawn Burke

I was first married at 17, and my husband was a hunter with several rifles. There were a couple of incidents when he was cleaning his guns. Once he supposedly had an empty gun and shot a hole in the floor a couple of inches from my foot. Another time he was looking through the barrel of his rifle, which he had aimed at my head. He told me it was empty when I yelled at him to move it. If I remember the time right, he was angry with me, and he wouldn’t talk about it.

I never thought of myself as a victim of gun violence. I was later a different type of crime victim and have had PTSD ever since. But after joining Moms Demand Action and reading several stories of gun violence, I wonder if he meant to hurt me and if the PTSD started there.

Reacting shows support for gun violence survivors.

283,608