Sandy Anglin Phillips
In this episode I'm joined By Sandy Anglin Phillips of SuvivorsEmpowered.org
Help Victims in Dayton and El Paso by clicking here.
First off I want to say how disgusted I am as a human that this reality of having to look for exits, and hiding places, and plan escape routes, has become common place. Words and thoughts and prayers couldn’t ever be enough to make up for the senseless and inexcusable loss of life we suffered... and we did suffer and we do suffer, all of us suffer these losses and I hope none of us forget what a great loss and tragedy this all is. Every single time. Which is a horrible statement in and of itself. Every single time.
This is an all encompassing human and specifically American problem. Let’s not forget those humans had families and friends and were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents. They were the most important person in someone’s life. They were loved. They were necessary. They were needed. And they will be missed forever. And unless we’ve been directly impacted (and I hope that you never have to experience that on a personal level) we can’t imagine the impact those losses will have and how many countless lives are affected. The collateral damage is immeasurable.
I recorded this episode last week with a person that I admire and care for greatly, she is one of the best humans I know. Like far too many Americans before and after her, she’s suffered great loss at the cost of domestic terrorism and gun violence. On July 20th 2012, an animal went in to a theater and slaughtered 12 people. One of those was her daughter and our friend (my wife and I) Jessi Ghawi, whom some of you know as Jessica Redfield.
She changed every room she walked into and gave life to you when you needed it most. And I am thankful I got to know her for the very short time I did. Not as well as most but enough to appreciate the friendship she gave us.
I want to thank Sandy for being on and speaking with me and it’s unfortunate that this comes at a time in our lives where these conversations are so fresh and I absolutely hate the coincidence of it, but I think this is an important conversation to have right now.
Sandy and her equally amazing husband Lonnie Phillips -along with author Tom Diaz- have written a book about these very conversations and why we as a culture arent making the necessary changes to fix this. “Tragedy in Aurora: The Culture of mass shootings in America” comes out August 14th. So please be on the look out for that. Also, Lonnie and Sandy were on an episode of 60 minutes discussing gun violence in America and gun culture along with many other important subjects, I will link that interview in the description for this episode.
And if you’d like to help provide assistance and counseling to victims of gun violence and help fight the necessary fight you can do so by visiting Survivors empoweredand donating to them and sharing their cause and mission as far and wide as possible.
Help Victims in Dayton and El Paso by clicking here.
Tragedy In Aurora: The Culture Of Mass Shootings In America(official release August 14th, pre-order now)