Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O”Malley, right, speaks with Sandy and Lonnie Phillips during a news conference to curb gun violence the day after the Democratic debate in Las Vegas. The Phillips” daughter Jessica Ghawi was gunned down in the 2012 Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting.. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill)
The call this week from the Democratic debate stage for stricter gun laws invoked the name of Aurora theater shooting victim Jessica Ghawi. In the CNN debate audience in Las Vegas, her mother, Sandy Phillips, sat shocked.
“To get a shout out from the stage — finally, finally, finally a shout out — to really open this debate about gun violence prevention, it was astounding,” Phillips said in an interview the next day.
Sandy and Lonnie Phillips attended the Tuesday debate as guests of Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor. And the next day, they appeared on national TV interviews and at a rally in which the candidate called for the end to legal immunity for gun dealers.
The story of how the Colorado family made it into the national political headlines began with posted online in September that described their against the online company that sold ammunition to James Holmes, the .
O’Malley’s campaign invited them to the debate and it took a last-minute flight to get them to the event in time. As they sat in the audience, Phillips said she didn’t know if the topic would get prime-time attention.
But O’Malley found his chance and named them. “Sandy and Lonnie Phillips are here from Colorado,” he said. “And their daughter, Jessie, was one of those who lost their lives in that awful mass shooting in Aurora.
“Now, to try to transform their grief, they went to court. … The game was rigged. A man had sold 4,000 rounds of military ammunition to this — this person that killed their daughter, riddled her body with five bullets, and he didn’t even ask where it was going.
“And not only did their case get thrown out of court, they were slapped with $200,000 in court fees because of the way that the NRA gets its way in our Congress and we take a backseat,” he finished.
“Not only did he take the opp but he was eloquent, he was passionate,” Phillips said of O’Malley.
Phillips didn’t get involved in politics much before the 2012 shooting, but . And while she isn’t endorsing a candidate — she also likes Hillary Clinton’s call for tougher gun laws — she knows she doesn’t like Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who has .
“If you are going to run for president, you better have a proposal, or a commitment, or say what you mean, or you’re not going to be my vote,” she said.
Still, even if Democrats win the White House, Phillips is realistic about her push. “I think the fact that it is even on the table and being discussed makes me thrilled,” she said. But, “we are going to have to elect a lot of Democrats in the Senate as well if we are going to get anything done. As you know the Republicans have the NRA agenda as part of their platform.”
As for the renewed attention on their case: “There have been so many people who have been fighting for this for so long,” she said, citing their relatively short three-year journey. “The ability to have a national voice, I just keep shaking my head. This should not be our life, but since it is, we are taking those very sour lemons we were given and squeezing them into some sweet lemonade.”
