Everytown for Gun Safety endorses Gina Raimondo for second term as Governor

Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund today endorsed Governor Gina Raimondo for re-election in the September 12 Democratic Primary said gun violence survivor Giovanna Rodriguez at a ceremony held by the Moms Demand Action Rhode Island in South Providence Friday afternoon.

Everytown is “a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities.”

“As I drove my ten-year old to school this morning, we passed the school where William Parsons a 15-year old Central High School student was shot and killed on the second day of school,” said Rodriguez. “The news shook me to my core. As a mother I can only imagine the pain his family will now endure for the rest of their lives…

“Our children deserve a future free from gun violence. We need a leader who will fight for common sense gun laws to keep our community safe and Gina Raimondo is that leader,” concluded Rodriguez.

Governor Raimondo arrived at the ceremony after visiting the vigil for William Parsons.

“I’m honored to be endorsed by Everytown, a non-partisan organization working to to end gun violence and build safer communities,” said Governor Raimondo. “We need to come together to end this gun violence epidemic. Our hearts are with the young victim of the shooting outside a Providence school this week. I will never stop fighting to keep our students, teachers and all Rhode Islanders safe from gun violence.”

“We need to keep this momentum going because we have so much work to do,” said Jennifer Boylan, president of Moms Demand Action Rhode Island. “We need to curb easy access to guns in our cities. We need a suite of strategies to curb daily gun violence and solve all gun crimes to bring justice for victims and their families. We need to pass the Safe Schools Act to ban guns from our public and private K-12 schools. We need to raise the age to buy a long gun from 18 to 21. and we should limit magazine capacity and ban semi-automatic assault weapons here in Rhode Island.”

Raimondo has a strong record on guns. She has “signed legislation to take guns away from domestic abusers, she was the first governor in America to sign an executive order after the Parkland shooting establishing a Red Flag policy to get guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, she signed Red Flag legislation into law in June, signed a ban on bump stocks that turn rifles into machine guns, announced $10 million in state funding available to Rhode Island schools for safety upgrades, took executive action to ban all firearms, except those carried by law enforcement officers, from public PK-12 school buildings and school grounds, and has pledged to push for an assault weapons ban in her second term.”

Also attending the campaign event were Rhode Island State Senators Maryellen Goodwin (Democrat, District 1, Providence), Gayle Goldin (Democrat, District 3, Providence), Harold Metts Democrat, (District 6, Providence) and Joshua Miller (Democrat, District 28, Cranston) and State Representative Joseph Almeida (Democrat, District 12, Providence).