'A good day' for Arizonans affected by Obama's actions on gun control

For people who have lost a loved one to gun violence, for those who have been shot themselves and survived, and for those who have suffered both, there are good days and bad days.

Tuesday, Pam Simon said, was a good day.

Simon was a staffer for then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in January 2011 when a gunman tried to assassinate the congresswoman at an event in a grocery-store parking lot outside Tucson and then fired into the scattering crowd.

Simon was shot twice, in the arm and chest, one of 13 people, including Giffords, wounded that day. Six people were killed, including 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green and Simon’s co-worker and friend, Gabe Zimmerman.

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Simon was among more than 100 people whose lives were changed by gun violence and who were invited to the White House on Tuesday as President Barack Obama unveiled a series of executive actions on gun control.

Arizona was well represented in the room as Obama spoke.

Jennifer Longdon, a Phoenix activist with Arizonans for Gun Safety who was paralyzed by gunfire, thought the email invitation from the White House on Saturday was a hoax. But soon she learned the president’s plan to announce his gun-safety measures was real.

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“It has been a whirlwind,” she said. “In a flash … this all came together.”

Among the measures, Obama proposed clarifying an existing law that requires almost anyone who sells guns for a living to register as a dealer and conduct background checks on buyers. The president also proposed investing in mental-health services, increasing research into gun-safety technology and adding additional federal agents and investigators. Congress could still have the final say on needed funding.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met behind closed doors with the group, offering hugs. Once the event started, Longdon crossed the stage in her wheelchair, taking her place immediately to Obama’s right.

“This is a very significant boost, and I’m proud to have been here today to have been part of it,” she said. “But we have a lot of work to do,” especially as Republicans vow to block the actions.

But as Simon and other survivors left the White House afterward, she said they agreed, “This was a good day.”

“We all came out feeling lives will be saved. Because of what happened today, lives will be saved.”

Other Arizonans who attended the speech included Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, who founded the gun-control group Americans for Responsible Solutions; Daniel Hernandez Jr., the Giffords intern who held her after she was shot; Christina-Taylor Green's parents, John and Roxanna Green; and Pia Carusone, a former Giffords aide and adviser to her gun-control organization. U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a gun-control advocate, and Allie Bones, executive director of the Arizona Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, which has pushed for preventing abusers from possessing guns, also were there.

“Unfortunately, it’s a hell of a fraternity to belong to,” Longdon said. “Once we meet, we are bonded for life together.”

In the years since her daughter’s death, Roxanna Green has become an advocate for reasonable gun control. She's made more than a half-dozen trips to Washington, D.C., to talk about the issue.

“It was a long time coming, but it was really, really positive,” Green said just before she and her husband, John, boarded a plane back to Tucson.

She said public support is strong. People are beginning to understand. “This could happen to anybody. It wasn’t just in Tucson at the supermarket or at a school in a town they’ve never heard of,” she said. It could be any school, church or workplace.

“We have to do something — something — to stop all the gun violence that is going on in our country. This is a start.”

The survivors have seen a groundswell of advocacy groups and have heard constituents asking candidates about gun-violence prevention, an issue that was not so pressing in the last general election.

“There is no question about it -- the public sentiment is changing,” Simon said.

“We are not going to let this continue to happen,” she said. She and many of the other survivors from Arizona are members of Everytown for Gun Safety, which includes Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and the Everytown Survivor Network.

The last time so many of them were together in Washington, D.C., was two years ago when lawmakers blocked a provision that would have required background checks for gun sales.

Patricia Maisch, who is credited in the Tucson-area shooting with snatching away the gunman’s extra magazine as he fumbled to reload and was tackled, stood in protest in the Senate gallery during the vote.

"Shame on you!” she yelled before being escorted out of the Capitol by police.

Maisch said Tuesday’s event was much more satisfying.

“It was very encouraging,” Maisch said. “We know that this is not the end of it. There is a lot of other work to do.”

Maisch was sitting one seat from the aisle Tuesday, and when the president began to leave, she leaned over and handed him a photograph.

He reached for a pen before Maisch told him, “No, Mr. President, that photograph is for you.”

It had been given to her by Caren Teves, whose son Alex was shot and killed in the 2012 movie-theater massacre in Aurora, Colo. Caren Teves had been unable to attend and asked Maisch to give the picture of her son to the president.

As Obama studied the picture, Maisch said she told him, “She wanted me to thank you for your actions.”

Obama nodded, thanked her and left holding the picture.

After the families left the White House, some made their way in the cold together to the Catch 15 Italian Kitchen and Oyster Bar a short distance away.

Simon said she looked around the room at lunch at the people gathered.

The father of a man killed in San Bernardino, Calif. Parents who lost children in the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The parents of Alison Parker, the television journalist shot dead in August while on the air in Roanoke, Va.

The wife and daughter of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the state senator who was shot and killed along with eight other worshippers in the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C.

“The history of gun violence in our country is written on those faces,” Simon said.

But the mood was upbeat, even optimistic. It had been a good day.