Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion at CNN.

(CNN) They met in a college bookstore in rural Arkansas over a $10 used book transaction nearly three decades ago. Mitch Wright soon married Shannon Williams. They had a son, and Shannon became a devoted schoolteacher. Their storybook tale came to a tragic end on March 24, 1998, when Shannon Wright and four students were gunned down at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, by two young students in possession of more than a dozen fully loaded firearms.

Alice Stewart

Fast forward 21 years: Americans experienced a weekend full of violence in which a gunman killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas, and another shooter killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio.

Decades of gun violence, hundreds of lives senselessly cut short. Like so many other victims of mass shootings, Mitch Wright wanted action then, and he wants it now. He believes many elected officials don't understand the urgency for action because they have not experienced the loss of a loved one, a child, a spouse. Wright told me Shannon was his "one," adding "heaven forbid it happen to anyone else."

I am a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and a fierce advocate for the right to bear arms. In the aftermath of every mass shooting, I have opposed knee-jerk reactions from gun control advocates. I have opposed proposals from the left to restrict gun ownership, which encroach on personal security and Second Amendment rights. I have opposed the attempts by Democrats to "not let a crisis go to waste."

No more -- it's time for action. It's time to turn safety rhetoric into reality.