GrillChat: Why Gun Control Advocate Richard Martinez’s Closest Friends ‘Are Other Survivors’ (Video)

“You know it’s bad, but until you’ve lived it, you don’t really know,” Martinez tells TheWrap

Richard Martinez, a gun control advocate who lost his son to a shooting in Santa Barbara in 2014, told the audience attending TheWrap’s GrillChat on Thursday that no one can truly know what it’s like to be affected by gun violence until it happens to them.

“My closest friends now are other survivors, because no one really knows what its like except other survivors,” he said. “You know it’s bad, but until you’ve lived it, you don’t really know. It takes you down into a place you’ve never been before.”

Martinez, a senior associate for gun control organization Everytown for Gun Safety, described the pain and fear he experienced when he was trying to get information on the wherabouts of his own son, Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, who was one of six UCSB students to be killed in a rampage by 22-year-old Elliot Rodger in what has become known as the Isla Vista shootings.

Grillchat Guns and Violence Richard Martinez Robert Greenwald Sharon Waxman

Although he has grown closest to other survivors since the loss of his 20-year-old son, he honors the victims every day by wearing bracelets that bear the name of a mass shooting victim.

GrillChat Robert Greenwald Richard Martinez Sharon Waxman Gun Violence

“This green one says ‘What would Dawn do?’ And Dawn Hochsprung was the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” Martinez said. “She was awarded the Presidential Medal for Heroism because she tried to stop the shooter. And this one was given to me by Dawn Lafferty. She’s the daughter of Dawn Hochsprung.”

Martinez then indicated a purple bracelet with the name of a 9-year-old girl killed in the same shooting that left former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords with a bullet wound to the head. Christina-Taylor Green was the youngest of six killed in the 2011 Tucson mass shooting.

Grillchat Guns and Violence Richard Martinez bracelets

Watch the discussion above.

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