When Stanley Schaper was a boy, his 11-year-old sister shot and killed their 9-year-old sister.
“I’m from Texas, and it hurts me the way they are about guns. That’s where it’s really bad,” the 74-year-old says today.
The pain of the accidental killing informs Mr. Schaper’s protests at the White House with We The People For Sensible Gun Laws.
Since July 2012, the advocacy group of about a half-dozen seniors has been protesting in front of the White House every Monday.
Instead of chanting and shouting through megaphones, the members let the numbers speak for themselves. They display posters bearing statistics on gun violence, including a binder showing the number of gun-related deaths in the past week —150.
Their largest display features a timeline of gun-related deaths organized by location, date, and age and name of the victims. The June 12 massacres at a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida, occupies the most space, as the names of the 49 people who were slain and the 53 who were wounded go on for three pages.
The July 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in which 12 people were killed and 70 were wounded, did not personally affect Helen Ramsey. But it did motivate her to co-found We The People For Sensible Gun Laws with two friends.
Since the Orlando mass shooting, the gun control has heated up, and the group hasn’t shied away from the topic, urging passersby to take action.
Co-founder Linda Finkel-Talvadkar doesn’t waste any time mingling with people who come to read the signs: She greets them with a smile and a handshake as she launches into a conversation about guns and gun control.
“We’re doing this for our children and grandchildren. We’re doing this so that no one ever has to go through what the parents at Newtown had to go to, or the parents of the people in the Aurora theater,” the 64-year-old said, referring to the December 2012 incident in which 20 children and six adults were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Many visitors are foreign, but when protesters find out they’re talking to an American, they urge them to take action to their congressional representatives. They hand out business cards with the websites of House and Senate members to help people email their senators and representative to demand change.
Although protesters were happy with last week’s Democratic sit-in for gun control, though some said it’s not enough.
“I wish they had done it 3 1/2 years ago. Why did they take so long? I’m glad they did it, but they need to continue to put pressure on their colleagues in the House,” Ms. Finkel-Talvadkar said.
Ms. Ramsey emphasizes that the group does not oppose firearm possession and the Second Amendment.
“We want to start with a reasonable way for us to be kinder and safer in a lovely world that we all want to share. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s talk about how to make this a better country where all people are safe,” she said.
• Emily Kim can be reached at ekim@washingtontimes.com.
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