Students, parents join New Mexico senator to push for new gun safety laws

Yahoo

18-04-2025

Christina Gill, a member of Moms Demand Action from Santa Fe, stands in a front of a mural commemorating victims of gun violence outside a public charter school in Bernalillo County. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)
Christina Gill says life continues after losing someone to gun violence, but the pain remains and her experience of joy is different.
Gill lost her 39-year-old son Joseph Aieloo on Oct. 4, 2021, after Jay Wagers, 29, shot him in the Santa Fe neighborhood where Aieloo grew up.
Gill, a member of Moms Demand Action, said she still lives in that same neighborhood, because her son was such a dynamic person 'there's no place I can go in Santa Fe that I'm not reminded of his presence.'
Gill spoke on Wednesday morning at an event organized by New Mexico Democrat U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich's office outside of Robert F. Kennedy Charter School's middle school campus just outside the Albuquerque city limits, near the South Valley. They were joined by students from the middle school, from the advocacy organization Students Demand Action, and from ACE Leadership High School.
A week earlier, Heinrich re-introduced two pieces of legislation in Congress intended to address gun violence: the GOSAFE Act, which would regulate the sale, transfer and manufacture of gas-operated semi-automatic firearms; and the BUMP Act, which would ban the sale of 'bump stocks' and other devices or modifications that convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic ones.
'It is not only our right but our duty to advocate for gun safety laws,' Gill said. 'I ask you to stand with me today in urging our legislators to pass GOSAFE, to protect our communities and children from the tragedy of gun violence, to protect not just the rights of those who champion the Second Amendment, but to acknowledge their duty as elected officials to pass legislation that protects the equal rights of all of their constituents, especially children, to feel safe in our communities.'
Heinrich said Wednesday that the previous assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, prohibited things that were 'purely cosmetic,' while the true deadliness of some firearms comes from the mechanisms they use to quickly load a new round after firing the first one.
'It won't change things overnight but it would move us on a trajectory where there would be far fewer of these weapons of war on the streets over time,' he said.
Gill said Heinrich's legislation targets particular and especially lethal gas-operated semi-automatic firearms, leaving numerous options for people to buy other kinds of guns to hunt, compete or protect their families
The legislation would require that if a firearm is gas-operated — meaning it uses the gas expended by the first fired round to quickly cycle the firing mechanism and load the next one — it must have a magazine that is not detachable and only holds 10 rounds, Heinrich said.
'We know time and time again that the moment that these mass shootings actually come to an end is when the shooter has to stop, take stock and get reloaded without being able to just slide another high-capacity magazine in,' Heinrich said.
Ken Jones, a hunter and firearm owner, said large magazines are not needed for target practice or self-defense.
'To solve the gun crisis in our country today, in my opinion …we need to have better access to mental health care, we need strong red flag laws and yes, we need to keep the most violent criminals off our streets and out of our communities,' Jones said.
Monicia Henley, senior vice president of corporate affairs with Everytown for Gun Safety, said Heinrich's bill will prevent more mass shootings, and she called on his colleagues in Congress along with New Mexico state lawmakers to join him.
'This isn't about taking away our rights, it's about saving lives,' Henley said. 'We need to make a special session happen in Santa Fe, and focus on preventative measures that will save lives.'
Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, said Heinrich's legislation represents 'the first critical steps to remove weapons of war from our civilian population, weapons that never should have been available to any of us in the first place.'
Gill on Wednesday talked about the other people who were hurt in the shooting that killed her son, and the people left to live with his absence.
She said he volunteered for tenant advocacy group Chainbreaker Collective, she said.
'He helped people get off the street,' she said. 'He really cared about people who are marginalized. So I am much more empathetic and compassionate as a result of this loss in understanding why he cared so much for people who struggled.'
Gill said Wagers 'went on a rampage,' shooting another random victim through the eye who survived with permanent brain damage, injuring another with shattered glass and traumatizing two more people by barely missing them with bullets.
Wagers ultimately pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Aieloo's shooting death, and also pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder; two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; and shooting from a vehicle in the same incident. A state district court judge sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
Gill read from 15-year-old Landon Garcia's victim impact statement in the case.
'Joey was, and still is, a very important person in my life,' Garcia wrote. 'The night I found out he died, I bawled my eyes out. I cried and cried. He was one of my role models and my friend. If this man would not have murdered him, my life would be different.'
Gill told reporters that it's her duty to do anything that might prevent a similar tragedy from affecting anyone else.
'I stand here for my son, all the Landons and community members, families and friends whose lives would be different if not for the devastation of gun violence,' Gill said. 'We're always going to have conflict, but it doesn't mean we have to have violence.'