Fred Guttenberg {courtesy}
By Kevin Deutsch
Gun safety activist Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, announced Thursday he is joining the gun-violence prevention group Brady PAC.
Guttenberg, 55, will work as a senior adviser for the organization in the run-up to the 2022 midterm congressional elections, for which Brady officials said they plan to spend several million dollars.
Brady PAC is the sister organization and political arm of Brady, the nation’s oldest gun-violence-prevention advocacy organization. They spent over $5-million during the 2020 cycle supporting gun violence prevention candidates.
Jaime Guttenberg, a talented dancer, was one of 17 students and staff members fatally shot with an assault rifle in the Valentine’s Day mass shooting in Parkland. Another 17 were wounded.
The killer, Nikolas Cruz, pleaded guilty in a Broward County courtroom this week to 17 counts of murder and guilty of 17 counts of attempted murder.
“Since Jaime’s murder, I have worked with the incredible array of grassroots and large gun safety organizations and the leaders of the gun violence prevention movement,” Fred Guttenberg said in a prepared statement. “We are strong, we are diverse, we are mighty and we want to end gun violence today. Lives hang in the balance every day, and those of us who have suffered the unimaginable have been forced to fight for a safer America. Thankfully, our success in the last two elections have created an unprecedented opportunity this year to meaningfully tackle gun violence across this country at the federal and state levels.”
Guttenberg is the founder of Orange Ribbons for Gun Safety, which advocates for a public health approach to gun safety to reduce the gun violence death rate and decrease gun violence.
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