This week, the mother of the shooter in the Oxford High School mass shooting was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. This verdict is another step in the Oxford community’s years-long pursuit of justice. Stateside spoke with Aubrey Greenfield, a survivor of the Oxford shooting and a gun violence prevention activist, about what this verdict means to her and members of her community.
“People from the Oxford community and my friends and teachers I've been hearing from…[are] very, very thrilled because it's so personal and we've been kind of drug along in this period of uncertainty and this burden of uncertainty for a little over two years now. So finally, having some of our questions and those uncertainties answered and justice provided has definitely been benefiting everyone,” Greenfield said.
Greenfield said she is continually working to find a balance between her activism, being a full-time student, and taking time for herself. While engaging with traumatic reminders of the shooting takes a toll on her mental health, she said knowing that her work will “help catalyze future change and help catalyze preserving the lives of students and making sure that they're safe in school” encourages her to continue her activism for gun violence prevention.
We also spoke with Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. That’s the organization that formed in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. Suplina talked about how this verdict could impact perspectives on gun ownership and storage, as well as how legislation is changing around the responsibility of gun owners.
As of February 13, all gun owners in Michigan who have children in their home will have to lock their unloaded firearms with a cable lock or in a gun safe. Suplina sees this a responsible step toward decreasing gun violence, as most students who commit gun crimes use firearms found in their home.
“I feel that this [verdict] will never be enough justice for the families that lost a child in this shooting, but it does send a very strong and important message that gun owners need to take responsibility when there's a child in the house to to not allow unsupervised access to that firearm,” Suplina said. “In that sense, this is a really important verdict for the community and the country.”
GUESTS ON THIS EPISODE:
- Aubrey Greenfield, University of Michigan student; gun violence prevention activist
- Nick Suplina, senior vice president for Law and Policy at Everytown for Gun Safety
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