STATEMENT FROM COUNCILMEMBER MITCH O’FARRELL ON UVALDE MASS SHOOTING

Los Angeles, CA – City of Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell released statement below:

“Today, yet again, we search for some kind of appropriate reaction to a tragedy in which words are wholly and completely inadequate.

Not even two weeks ago, in Buffalo, 10 Black people were indiscriminately slaughtered at a supermarket by a racist killer in an act of domestic terrorism. Earlier today, 21 people, including 18 children, were slaughtered at a school in Texas. Each of these shootings – like the hundreds and hundreds of others in the only nation on earth that allows this to occur – rips at the soul of what our country aspires to be. One after another, day after day, we lose a little bit more of our collective humanity, and a degraded quality of life in these United States.

Today, once again, I find myself, like many of you, searching for the right words in response to yet another mass murder in America, made possible by easy access to guns and weapons of war widely available for domestic use.

There are simply no words, absolutely none at all, that are remotely adequate in the face of yet another senseless, preventable tragedy.

Enough.

We need a paradigm shift in this country, and we need it now. We need gun safety legislation immediately, starting with federal gun safety laws. We cannot continue to exist as a nation that is unable to reasonably guarantee that its citizens can go to a school, or a supermarket, or a movie theater, or a nightclub, or a place of worship – or anywhere else – without being gunned down by someone who should never have had access to a firearm.

What kind of society do we want to be in America? What kind of society are we leaving for the next generation – if we continue to accept over 100,000 deaths a year because of gun violence in this country? Aren’t we better than this?

Thoughts and prayers are useless and empty. Only action will be enough. Only a major paradigm shift will be enough. It needs to happen and it needs to happen now.” -Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell