Ladd Everitt has appeared numerous times on Liberal Fix radio and Friday evening, hosts Keith and Naomi aired a pre-recorded interview in which they asked Ladd to sound off on the legislation being proposed in California concerning gun violence restraining orders.
The gun violence restraining order would allow family members or loved ones to go before the court to ask that weapons be removed from a family member they see as potentially violent and capable of harming himself or others.
Ladd Everitt spoke about this legislation while referencing Elliot Rodger the gunman who recently went on a rampage in Isla Vista, California:
"His family was reaching out and saying help, help. And it was a situation where, you know, at a minimum you would have liked to have allowed them an opportunity to go before a judge and make the case and of course allow Elliot or anyone else in that situation to make their case, right? Allow both sides to make their case and allow a judge to rule if it would be wise to temporarily get guns out of that situation. To look and say, is this individual in a crisis period right now? Is this a particularly dangerous time for this individual and if it is can we temporarily remove these firearms at this moment until the period of crisis passes?"
It appears that the family had sought help for Elliot Rodger, but the only available recourse in this particular situation was insufficient to prevent the Isla Vista tragedy. If this legislation had already been passed and his family had been enabled to seek this kind of protection for their loved one, could we have saved seven lives?
Ladd finished up the interview on a positive note, emphatically stating that the momentum for gun violence prevention legislation being passed is actually greater than during the immediate aftermath of Newtown.
"We have more momentum right now than we had immediately after Newtown....I'll point to something that happened yesterday in the House of Representatives. We were able to pass an amendment there offered by Mike Thompson, Democrat from California, and by Peter King and a couple of other folks....that passed that chamber and will provide additional funding to states to get disqualifying records like the records we are talking about today into the NICS database and the NRA seriously remained neutral on that."
Sometimes it is difficult to gauge how successful a movement is when you are not, day in and day out, involved in the process. I find it very reassuring that Mr. Everitt suggests that there are victories being won.
We have many more victories to come before gun sense becomes a reality across this country. Ladd Everitt, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and many other individuals and organizations are out there to make sure what many of us hope for becomes a reality.
Listen to the entire Ladd Everitt interview here.