Use your voice to stop gun violence!

2020 JMS Animo Voices finalist

Gemly Garcia|March 18, 2020

Hi! My name is Gemly Addison Garcia. I’m here today to use my voice to help stop gun violence.

I really want to help spread the word to stop using guns because of something that happened to me when I was only two years old.

When I was two, I was in a shooting caused by my step dad. My 26-year-old stepdad started a shooting in Prince William County. I was in the back seat looking at my so called “dad” shoot 13 rounds of bullets at 44-year old James Bringham. James, if you’re reading my speech, on behalf of my “father,” I’m so sorry for the trouble we have caused you.

People all over the world were calling my step father a hero for protecting me… Don’t. He’s one of the worst human beings I have ever made face-to-face contact with. He would make my mom’s and my life miserable…he hit us, called us names, abandoned us, drank, smoked. I could hear my mom screaming when she told me to go to my room. It was terrible. She made him sound like an amazing guy, but he’s awful. He’s the reason my mom is where she is today. In the end he got charged with child endangerment, attempted homicide/murder and weapons charges, but only ended up with about 13 days in jail and had to pay five thousand dollars in fines. But let’s not get that deep into that.

We can do many things right now to help with this situation. We can help establish new gun laws, reduce easy access to guns, require safe and secure gun storage, and end legal gun immunity for gun manufacturers.

There are so, so, so, so many other horrible things happening to the world that we are supposed to be taking care of, and we are just ignoring signs to put a stop to what we are doing! If we don’t stop now, there is a possibility we can’t stop it later.

I want to address this in particular because there are so many people who have had their families broken to pieces because of guns. Kids, who are even younger than me! Have gotten killed!! Innocent children! Mothers who are in despair! Imagine if it was your child who got shot…

January 24, 2020 5 people were killed. “ A man shot and killed his wife and three children, aged between eight months and four years old along with the family dog. He then killed himself in a murder-suicide.”. We kill family now! Five people killed that night! Lives can go in flash…

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to come listen to other many beautiful voices, including mine.