My name is Gretchen Buchenholz, and I’m proud to be in the Leadership Council of 24/7 The People’s Filibuster. I am the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Association to Benefit Children (ABC). Our mission is to champion all children. ABC creates compassionate programs in urgent response to the needs of New York City’s most vulnerable families. I bring greetings and gratitude to the members of the United States Congress from ABC’s children.
I will be brief. You already know from authoritative evidence that there is a critical gun crisis in America. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children. This is a new harvest of the grapes of wrath devastating vast numbers of children on our streets in our schools and even in our nurseries, destroying our nation’s most valuable resources: our children’s optimism, their hope, and their faith in the basic goodness of our country and the wisdom and fairness of its lawmakers. It’s time to act. It’s time to end the gun violence. It’s time for common sense gun-safety legislation.
Some of you are hesitant. I know it’s complicated, far from perfect, full of gaps and loopholes, “a sticky wicket.” The truth is, it’s also eerily simple. Our children know the truth.
The children who attend our programs live in the most marginalized communities, mainly in East Harlem and the South Bronx and are amongst the most vulnerable in the nation. They also have the greatest aspirations and the biggest dreams. They asked me to give you vital information so you will want to act quickly to change the structures that support gun-violence and its attendant cruelty and misery.
One of our children… he’s really cute… only eight and a half, wants you to know that he can’t go to sleep at night because he hears gunshots every night outside his window, a window he’s afraid to go near. If somehow, he does fall asleep, he wakes up to gunshots in the morning. He’s afraid to leave the house to go to school, but he risks it. At school he meets up with a friend who tells him about the time his brother was shot in the head.
An eleven year old of ours had to transfer to a new school this week because some kid in the hallway told her that he put a hit out on her because she refused his advances.
Our children know what sticky is! Sticky is your best friend’s blood on you, on your hands, on our hands!
Angelyh, a really kind, determined and gentle student of ours just turned sweet sixteen. She was leaving her school with her best friend; the two girls were jubilant; they had aced their exam. Angelyh was gunned down and killed by a seventeen year old child in some random shooting.
I know that these are not nice things to report. It’s a heartbreaking picture, a pervasive picture. There’s such urgency here! Our children, marching on under the Metro North Railroad tracks, carry placards that say “STOP THE SHOOTINGS. WE WANT TO SHOOT FOR THE STARS.” For our children’s sakes, we implore you to act now to pass robust gun safety legislation in both houses before the recess, so that on July Fourth we will feel safe opening our windows to hear fireworks and we will take the children down to the riverside to see the glorious bursts of red, white, and blue light up our spacious night sky.
Thank you for this opportunity to bear witness on behalf of all children who live on this slippery edge of fear and hope.