Everytown Statements In Response to Mass Shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon

NEW YORK AND PORTLAND, Ore. — In response to reports of today’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, Everytown for Gun Safety, the Everytown Survivor Network, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America released the following statements. This is the 45th school shooting in America this year and the 142nd school shooting since the tragedy at Sandy Hook.

A previously released report from Everytown for Gun Safety provides a comprehensive analysis of incidents in which four or more people were murdered with a gun, a widely used definition of mass shootings from the FBI.

STATEMENT FROM COLIN GODDARD, VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING SURVIVOR AND SENIOR POLICY ADVOCATE FOR EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY:

“My heart goes out to the entire Umpqua Community College family. Seeing the breaking news of yet another campus shooting jolts me back to my own experience at Virginia Tech. America is the only developed country where when someone asks if you heard about that campus shooting, you have to clarify ‘which one?’ That is unacceptable. Something has to change. We need to all come together for the Umpqua families today. Then we need to all demand action from our elected officials before the next tragedy happens.”

STATEMENT FROM JENNA YUILLE, EVERYTOWN SURVIVOR NETWORK FELLOW WHOSE MOTHER WAS KILLED IN CLACKAMAS MALL SHOOTING:

“Once again here in Oregon, our community has been torn apart by a tragic and senseless act of gun violence. My thoughts are with the students, faculty and families of those killed and injured at Umpqua Community College today. What they are going through and feeling right now is all too familiar to me. While we still have much to learn about the details surrounding this horrific act, it is clear we cannot, as a nation, sit idly by without taking meaningful action to end gun violence in America.”

STATEMENT FROM SHANNON WATTS, FOUNDER OF MOMS DEMAND ACTION FOR GUN SENSE IN AMERICA:

“We are in mourning with the rest of the nation as we learn more about the students, faculty and families affected by the horrific mass shooting today in Roseburg, Oregon. Although details are still unfolding, we know that this is at least the 142nd school shooting since the tragedy at Sandy Hook and the 45th school shooting in 2015. As a mother with three children in college, I am constantly on alert for campus shootings because at least one school shooting takes place every week in this country. We don’t have to live this way. Parents in other developed countries don’t receive text messages that say, ‘Mom, active shooter. Love you.’

“Despite the pleas of the gun lobby and some lawmakers that we not discuss gun laws in the wake of preventable shooting tragedies, I and other mothers across the country will never be silent again. We refuse to let school shootings be an acceptable reality and we will stop at nothing until our political leaders and in statehouses across the country stop asking students and teachers to stand up to gunmen so they don’t have to stand up to the gun lobby. The rhetoric that nothing can be done is tired and wrong and pathetic. Obviously no one law will prevent every episode of gun violence, but we have a moral imperative to do more to protect our children or we are sacrificing our children to gun laws made by the gun lobby – we must act now to stop this carnage.”