When Julianne Moore was faced with a situation where she had to explain to her daughter what had happened when 20 young children and six adults were gunned down in Newton, she knew it was time to take action. That’s when, she wrote in Lena Dunham’s Lenny newsletter, she learned that an average of 91 people are killed as a result of gun violence every day.
“It felt ridiculous to me, and irresponsible as a parent and as a citizen, that I was not doing something to prevent gun violence,” she explained.
To Moore, the issue of gun safety is everybody’s issue, no matter where on the political spectrum you stand. “A majority of us are on the same side,” Moore wrote, “so why does our country have a gun murder rate 25 times that of other developed countries?”
It’s a good question, and one Moore thinks we can and should address. Women, she says, should have a particular interest in taking action. “American women are 11 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than in any other developed nation,” she pointed out. “That is an abomination, and it is time for common-sense solutions.” As a result, Moore has joined Everytown for Gun Safety, and her essay calls on Lenny readers to do the same.
“We need you to continue to turn the tide on gun violence. And I know that we can do it together,” she wrote in closing. “I don’t ever want to have to explain another Newtown to my kids, and neither should you.”