Mother of murdered teen, now a gun reform advocate, runs for US Congress

Lucy McBath, an activist for gun reform, is running in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat in Georgia’s 6th District. She is the mother of Jordan Davis, the black teenager who was shot in the back seat of a friend’s car by a 45 year-old white man who said the music they were playing was too loud.

During the 2012 confrontation, the man who shot Jordan, Michael Dunn, shouted, “Are you talking to me? You’re not going to talk to me that way.” Then he reached for his pistol and fired 10 shots into the car. The stand-your-ground law empowered him to shoot her son, many gun reform advocates say, because someone only has to have a “reasonable belief” that their life is in danger.

McBath testified against expanding the law in Florida and has been a fierce gun reform advocate over the years.

McBath told CNN that after the Parkland school shooting in February, when 17 people died, she reached out to Parkland families and carried on her lobbying for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America. Then she prayed and looked to God for guidance about what to do in the aftermath of the shooting. That week, she decided to run for office, according to a long profile about the activist published by CNN.



https://thinkprogress.org/mother-of-murdered-teen-now-a-gun-reform-advocate-runs-for-us-congress-cb138b8ea66f/