In an unprecedented move in the tradition of the President’s weekly address, private citizen Francine Wheeler, whose son Ben, 6, was one of the 20 first graders murdered by a gunman with an automatic weapon at Newtown, Ct, delivered the President’s Weekly address.
It is serious, compelling — and wrenching:
In remarks that she wrote along with her husband David, Wheeler explained, “Our younger son Ben, age six, was murdered in his first grade classroom on December 14, exactly four months ago this weekend.”
“Irrepressibly bright and spirited, Ben experienced life at full tilt,” she said. “Until that morning. 20 of our children and six of our educators – gone, out of the blue.”
Wheeler was among the 12 family members of Newtown victims who fanned out across Capitol Hill this week, pressing wavering legislators to support a bill, currently under consideration in the Senate, that would expand background checks for gun purchases and stiffen penalties for illegal gun trafficking.
In her address, which marked the first time a non-administration official delivered the weekly address during President Obama’s tenure, she made it clear that she and the rest of the families will not rest until they achieve some measure of reform. “I’ve heard people say that the tidal wave of anguish our country felt” after Newtown “has receded,” she said. “But not for us. To us, it feels as if it happened just yesterday.”
“Please help us do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy,” she pleaded. “We have to convince the Senate to come together and pass common sense gun responsibility reforms that will make our communities safer and prevent more tragedies like the one we never thought would happen to us.”
UPDATE: Obama has sent out this email explaining why he didn’t deliver the address this week.
Hello, everybody —
Each week, like many presidents before me, I sit down to record a short address to the nation. It’s something I take very seriously because it offers a chance to bring focus to an issue that needs to be part of the national dialogue.
But today, I’ve asked someone to take my place.
Francine Wheeler is a mother. She and her family live in Newtown, Connecticut. Four months ago, her six year-old son Ben was murdered in his elementary school, along with 19 other children and six brave educators.
Joined by her husband David, Francine shares her perspective about the steps we can take to reduce gun violence and prevent the kind of tragedy she understands all too well.
It’s a message that every American should hear:
Watch Francine, then join her in speaking out to make our country safer.
This week, because people like Francine and like you got involved, the U.S. Senate took a step forward on commonsense reforms to reduce gun violence.
And that’s good. Because this shouldn’t be about politics. This is about doing the right thing for families that have been torn apart by gun violence, and for all our families going forward.
But we’ve got a lot of work to do before Congress finishes the job.
So if you believe that we can take sensible steps to protect more of our kids from gun violence and protect our Second Amendment rights, stand up and join us.
Just visit WhiteHouse.gov to get started:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/newtown-address
Thanks,
President Obama
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.