On "Forbes Newsroom" gun control activist Angela Ferrell-Zabala spoke about possible solutions to gun violence following a deadly shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
00:00And I think in these times, people sometimes say, now's not the time to get political.
00:06Now's not the time to bring up politics.
00:09Now's not the time to bring up policy.
00:11We're sending our thoughts and prayers to these communities.
00:13We need to let this community heal.
00:15The Minneapolis mayor also said these children were literally praying enough thoughts and prayers, essentially.
00:23I mean, what do you think is the solution here?
00:26So as a person of deep faith, I agree.
00:29I use prayer all the time in those times where I need to pull myself out of a space of, you know, either sadness or fear, whatever that may be.
00:37So prayer is very important, but prayer without action is dead.
00:41It does nothing.
00:43We can't bring these children back.
00:45But what we need to do is make sure that we are moving forward and doing everything in our power.
00:49Every single one of us has an obligation to protect our communities and our children.
00:53Everything that we can do to make sure that we don't have easy access to guns, that we do have common sense gun laws and policies put in place that could have prevented this very tragedy.
01:04Do you think we're any closer right now to a common sense gun law here?
01:10Because the Minneapolis police chief, he said he wants to protect his community, places of worship and children.
01:18And every time there's a school shooting, I mean, the pictures are just horrifying.
01:24You see children crying.
01:25You see parents crying.
01:26You see reuniting of parents and children.
01:30I mean, it's just almost too much to bear.
01:32But we can't look away because this is happening in every community across this country.
01:38So how close are we to a solution, do you think?
01:41Well, I'll say a couple of things.
01:42First of all, you're absolutely right.
01:44We cannot look away.
01:45It is our responsibility to protect our children as this is the leading cause of death for kids in our country is unacceptable.
01:51That's number one.
01:53You mentioned earlier about the politics of this.
01:55This is not about politics.
01:56This is about saving lives.
01:58We have people, I have the pleasure as the executive director of Momsman Action to travel all the country.
02:04And we have people from all kinds of backgrounds, whether they are Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal gun owners, not.
02:10Faith leaders, veterans.
02:12And the common theme is that we must do something about this.
02:15We must and we can do something about this.
02:17And polls all over the place show that the majority of Americans want to see strong, responsible gun laws in this country to prevent these kinds of tragedies.
02:27What I am seeing, though, is also not only are people waking up and saying this is unacceptable.
02:34Our baby should not be suffering because we are not taking the action we need or don't have the courage to do what we need to keep them safe.
02:41They're also getting up and thinking about things like having those conversations with their community members and neighbors about gun violence, prevention and safety.
02:50Even simply saying, if your kid is going over to a sleepover or a play date, do you have a gun in the home?
02:56And what can we do once we know that we have a gun in the home to make sure that it's securely stored?
03:01There's all kinds of policies from secure storage to assault weapons ban.
03:05I know in this case, we see that this seems to be, from the reports I've seen, seems to be a semi-automatic rifle.
03:13And we know that Minnesota is working and has some decent gun laws in place, but this is a big gaping hole here at this point.
03:23We know federally we don't have it, and this is one of the states that don't actually have this.
03:27And this could have prevented this tragedy.
03:29So I see us moving forward in many ways, pushing from all angles.
03:34And we look at how big this problem is in this country.
03:36It is a public health crisis and tragedy here in this country.
03:40And we need to approach it from every single angle, from federal to electoral to health care.
03:46So we're doing everything in our power to work alongside lawmakers and others that are going to step up and do the right thing to make sure that we don't have to see this kind of tragedy with our children.
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