Mike Prindiville, Dallas, Texas

That original photograph is powerful. It represents my freedom. Some people may see me as a rightwing lunatic, but I’m just looking out for myself and my family.

We don’t need more gun laws; we just need to start enforcing the ones we already have. Criminals don’t follow the law, anyway – bad guys are going to get guns no matter what.

What does every single mass shooting have in common? “Gun-free zones.” I think it is fantastic that certain school districts are now training their teachers so they can carry a weapon in school. They should have done it years ago. Let people carry – then, if someone pulls out a gun, you have a bunch of people that will take them down.

There are certain areas that I would not want to walk without being armed. I am looking out for myself, my family, my neighbours.

The government is supposed to be working for us, not against us. And the ruling class, the political class, whatever you want to call those clowns in Washington, they have forgotten that: they think we work for them. They keep pushing all those judicial regulations; one day, the American public is going to put their foot down and say enough is enough.

The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Let natural selection take its course.

Kaitlyn Prindiville (Mike’s daughter)

I was six months old in that photograph, and now I’m 21. My friends’ parents have wondered why I was OK with Dad pointing a gun in my face. And I tell them he wasn’t – his finger wasn’t even on the trigger. That’s not what the picture is about. He’s not trying to harm me – he’s trying to protect me.

When I was in first grade, I took the picture in to school for show and tell. The teachers pulled me to the side and asked me, “Why did you bring this into school?” I said, “Because this is a nice picture. It’s my father protecting his family. Why wouldn’t I?”

My views on guns aren’t the same as my father’s. I believe if you want a gun to protect your family, then do it if you feel you need it. But I don’t think gun controls are so bad. I don’t think the government are trying to ban them completely, they’re just going to try to regulate them. I think if the pro-gun and anti-gun people sat down and thought about it, and had a little bit more of an open mind, there could be compromise.

I feel perfectly safe no matter where I go. If something happens, my dad’s just a call away, and if the worst comes to the worst, I know he’ll protect me. As long as they’re in the right hands, no one should be afraid.

Richard Mack, former sheriff, Phoenix, Arizona

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Richard Mack pictured in 1996. Photograph: Zed Nelson

Since the first photograph was taken, I think I’ve got stronger in my views about freedom and liberty and the right to keep and bear arms.

I am very religious and I believe that freedom is a gift from Almighty God. In that original photograph, I wanted to display the gun to show how much I am dedicated to the principles of liberty. What a gun represents to me is the liberty that we have here. I am a free American: I can have a gun if I want to.

There are already 350m guns in America. What are you going to do – confiscate them all? If you want to go after criminals who misuse guns, then the first time you arrest them, keep them. And make sure that the law-abiding citizen is ready, capable and prepared to shoot back. It is the great equaliser: if two people have a gun, they’re equal. If not, whoever has the gun is supreme.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) helped me with the lawsuit; they bankrolled the whole thing.

I won a lawsuit against the federal government in 1997. The case asserted that the Brady bill (a gun control law that demanded background checks) was unconstitutional. I am the only sheriff in American history to file a lawsuit against the federal government, take it all the way to the supreme court, and win.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) helped me with the lawsuit; they bankrolled the whole thing. When I called them and told them who I was and what I wanted to do, the NRA attorney said, “Sheriff, we’ve already been preparing the paperwork on this case and we’ve been praying that you would call.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Richard Mack, 2016. Photograph: Zed Nelson

The Declaration of Independence says we were endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. And those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have the right to choose which tool I use to defend my life.

If you want to repeal the second amendment and push for gun control, the founding fathers put a legitimate lawful process for amending the constitution. It has been amended 27 times in our 240-year history. You want to try to change it, go for it.

Jerry Francisco, former Memphis city coroner

Jerry Francisco Jerry Francisco (pictured in 1997 and now). Photograph: Zed Nelson

I was a medical examiner in Memphis from 1961 until 1999, and during that period I performed thousands of autopsies. About 10-20% of those deaths would be from gunshots – some accidental, some suicide, but most would be homicides.

Most are actually committed by people known to the victim: a relative, a friend or an acquaintance. There are very few that occur by the unknown mystery assailant waiting for the chance to kill.

Several years ago there was a scientist here in Memphis who did a study of murders in two different urban areas, seeing if the presence or absence of a gun in the home was a trigger for, or a protection from, murder. His conclusion was that the presence of a gun in the home was more likely to cause a death.

After the publication of that report, the gun lobby persuaded congress to prevent the government-funded Centers for Disease Control from funding studies on gun violence – thereby preventing further research like this from being done.

People say 18 is quite young to buy an assault rifle: well, I think 51 is too young to buy an assault rifle

The Sandy Hook school massacre was a very significant and tragic event, but whether it changed the way people think about guns I am not sure. Certainly the publicity machines of the gun manufacturers, the gun sellers and the gun owners were turned up full steam following that event, because they were afraid there would be a public reaction in favour of banning guns. The people who are pro-gun were out in force, trying to sell alternative explanations to counter the calls that stronger gun laws would make these kind of massacres less likely to occur.

An armed person is rarely in a position to stop someone who is trying to harm them with a gun. If the gun is not handy, it’s not likely to be of much use.

We control the age at which you drive cars, the speed at which you drive, the use of alcohol when you drive. This analogy I think is very appropriate – there are ways of controlling and minimising the use of guns.

People say 18 is quite young to buy an assault rifle: well, I think 51 is too young to buy an assault rifle. The only reason for buying one is if you are going to make an assault on an enemy position, and you need a lot of bullets because you have got a lot of people in the position you are attacking. It seems to me you don’t need an assault rifle to kill a deer.

Michael Rallings, director, Memphis police department

Michael Rallings Michael Rallings (pictured in 1997 and now). Photograph: Zed Nelson

In 1997 I was an operation sergeant in the Memphis police department and I think I had just taken over as the firearms training unit commander. I am now director of the police department.

A lot has changed since then. In the state of Tennessee they have passed a lot of legislature that is pro-gun, rather than in the other direction. Legislation has passed recently where people are allowed to carry a gun in their car, and a law that allows school staff to carry a gun on school property. And you are also now legally allowed to carry guns in bars.

I would prefer it if we did not have guns in bars. We don’t think that guns and alcohol mix well

From a police chief’s perspective, I would prefer it if we did not have guns in bars. It makes our job a little harder. We don’t think that guns and alcohol mix well. The law stipulates that the individual who is carrying does not drink, but you know, people consume too much alcohol and things happen.

Gun control is a very complex question in America. I think if we look back in history, America was founded on, and a lot of rights were won by, the use of firearms. But we have to recognise that we have a problem; we have to figure out a way to strike a balance between the individual right to bear arms and the rights of the public to be safe and secure from those that use firearms to do harm to others.

Private sales of guns can be made, legally, without a background check. I do think it would be a good idea to have background checks. There is an issue with individuals going into places and buying guns that end up being transferred to other individuals, who could then use them in a crime. I really try to focus on removing illegal guns from the street. We generally confiscate 2,500-3,000 guns a year.

After the series of recent school shootings, we go out to churches and schools to train people how to react to an active shooter situation. Since Columbine, I think we’ve evolved as an agency nationally. We know that we have to go in quick and neutralise the threat as quickly as possible. I think a properly trained, armed teacher can adjust to any threat that they deal with.

Sarah Read, Memphis, Tennessee

Sarah Read Sarah Read (pictured in 1997, aged 10, and now). Photograph: Zed Nelson

I left the business for a few years when I had my son, but now I’m back working at my parents’ gun store.

Nowadays, I do feel having a gun is a requirement, because here in Memphis it’s very dangerous and you need to have something to protect yourself. But I also feel there should be more rules, so it’s harder for criminals to get guns. Private sales are still happening at gun shows without background checks, and people trade their guns on Facebook.

If you’re on the terrorist watchlist and you’re not allowed to board a plane, why are you still legally able to buy a gun? That makes no sense. But the problem is that people believe that if you start with one law, it’s going to bring on all these others to control gun owners.

I hate seeing shootings happen, but it definitely is good for business

The Sandy Hook school massacre was terrible. If teachers had been allowed to carry guns in that school, it might not have been so bad. After these mass shootings, gun sales do go up, because people start getting freaked out. Elections tend to raise gun sales, too, because people think that the government is going to take all our guns away, so they stock up. I hate seeing shootings happen, but it definitely is good for business.

Right now, our bestselling rifle is the Smith & Wesson. It’s an AR-15 rifle, a very popular gun. People hunt with them; but there are plenty of people who come in here that look like they’re in a gang but are able to pass the background check.

People call it an assault rifle. I don’t. To me it’s more to go shoot or hunt with. But, yes, when you’re holding a gun like this, you look pretty tough, like you’re a badass. You wouldn’t want to mess with somebody who’s holding one.

Once we sell the gun, it’s no longer our problem, because the person who buys it should know how to be responsible. I guess you never know what people might do. But I don’t lose much sleep over it.

Mel Bernstein, gun store owner, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Mel Bernstein Mel Bernstein (pictured in 1999 and now). Photograph: Zed Nelson

The two hot guns I sell are the AK-47 and the AR-15, and I’ve got everybody beat in town with the prices because I buy so many.

I know I shouldn’t call them an assault rifle. They want me to say it’s a military-style weapon, a sporting gun. Different names, but it’s the same thing – a military weapon. And every American citizen, everybody with a clean record, should have the right to own anything they want with the right paperwork.

After the Aurora cinema shooting in 2012, the news people came in and asked me, “Why do you sell guns that kill people?” I said, “All these guns were on the wall last night and when I walked in this morning nobody was dead!” A gun doesn’t kill people, people kill people – and they just use the gun. They could use a fork, a knife, a hammer or a screwdriver. Why keep blaming it on the gun?

We used to have one gang member come in and buy 15 of the same gun. They’d send one kid in here with a clean record

If everybody carried a gun, they could have stopped the guy in the movie theatre – that’s the way I see it. If everybody carried a gun, there’d be 75% less crime. When one kid takes his gun out in the classroom, and he starts shooting everybody, how’s the teacher going to stop him if they can’t shoot back? They’ll just hide and wait to be shot.

There are guns I have sold, and every gun dealer sells, that are found in crimes all around the United States. But in Colorado they’ve changed the law so you’re responsible for a firearm that you buy: you can’t just give it away or sell it secondhand without a background check.

We used to have one gang member come in and buy 15 of the same gun. You know, they’d send one kid in here with a clean record to buy all the guns they want, then go out in the parking lot and hand them out to their friends. That’s not right. Every state has its own laws, so now they just go to Wyoming, buy all the guns they want and drive over the border.

Tom Mauser, father of Daniel, who was killed in the Columbine school shooting

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tom Mauser pictured in 1999. Photograph: Zed Nelson

The photograph was taken at a protest held against the NRA convention in Denver, 10 days after the Columbine school shooting, which killed my son Daniel.

I was still in grief, still in shock, but I wanted to be there. A lot of the speakers were speaking against the NRA’s presence in Denver so soon after the shooting. But I wasn’t so much against the NRA being there, it was more what they had done, in pushing for weak gun laws. The word on the banner, “Shame” was aimed at the NRA because they really have promoted this free-for-all that we have in America that makes it so easy for dangerous people to get hold of a gun.

What happened at Columbine on 20 April 1999 was that two young men, who were intent on killing as many students as they could, opened fire on students outside the school, then went inside the school and began shooting there. The library is where they killed and injured the most students, and that’s where my son was that day.

When I saw the news coverage, I rushed to a school where they were taking students who had escaped. Daniel was not there. It got worse as the day went on and there was no word from him. I was told at one point that there was one last school bus bringing students back from Columbine. When I’d been waiting for 45 minutes for a bus that should have taken only a couple of minutes, I began to realise that there was no last school bus. Someone had made a terrible mistake.

About two weeks before Columbine, Daniel said something to me at the dinner table, something that he had heard in a conversation with members of his debate team. He asked me if I knew there were loopholes in the Brady bill, the national law that requires you to pass a background check in order to purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer. At the time I just kind of blew it off, I didn’t really engage in the conversation. Two weeks later Daniel was killed with a gun that was purchased at a gun show through one of those loopholes. You can go to a gun show and at one table, if it’s a licensed dealer, you have to go through a background check, but at a table of a private seller, there’s no background check.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tom Mauser, 2016. Photograph: Zed Nelson

I became determined then, as a result of that, to close that loophole. I took a one-year leave of absence from my job and became a lobbyist in the state legislature to change our gun laws. When our legislature failed to close that gun show loophole, we took it to a vote of the people in Colorado. We put it on the ballot in 2000 and we were successful by a vote of 70% to 30%. We closed the gun show loophole in Colorado. But we can’t get anything done at the national level, the pro-gun lobby are too powerful. As a result, most states do still have those loopholes.

It’s absolutely ludicrous. I really think it’s important for people to understand that in most states a felon, a domestic abuser, a mentally disturbed person or a fugitive can simply go online and buy a gun, or go to the classified ads in the newspaper and buy a gun with no background check.

We are still shocked by these mass shootings today, but I think we have come to accept it as an unfortunate part of American life. We have so many more of these kinds of mass shootings than other developed nations. More than 30,000 gun deaths a year, including 10,000 gun homicides a year. It’s shameful.

Lisa Boshard, Denver, Colorado

Lisa Boshard Lisa Boshard in Denver, Colorado, a week after the Columbine high school massacre in 1999, and in 2016. Photograph: Zed Nelson

For guns to be taken away from peaceful, law-abiding gun owners because of a tragedy like Columbine would be a terrible mistake. I would protect my rights by any means. There aren’t a lot of things I believe in as much as our freedom to own guns.

There’s no amount of legislation in regards to gun laws that will ever keep tragedies from happening. I don’t think we can legislate for people who are totally irresponsible. We would have nothing but laws.

There are a lot of gun owners who don’t take the responsibility of owning guns seriously enough. But we can’t have laws that protect people from their own stupidity; regulation leads to more regulation, that’s the problem. It’s too slippery a slope.

I like living in a country where we are still able to own guns. I like the notion of being able to protect myself. It is a culture. There’s never been a time in America without guns. If you increase gun laws we’ll end up turning good guys into criminals just to be able to protect their homes and their loved ones and their personal freedoms.

Jansen Young, survivor of the 2012 Aurora cinema shooting

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jansen Young. Photograph: Zed Nelson

Twelve people were killed, including Young’s boyfriend, Jonathan Blunk, 26

My boyfriend Jon and I were movie fanatics. When Batman premiered, we knew we had to go. We had good seats near the front. It was about 10 minutes into the film when suddenly there were these bangs, and Jon grabbed me and pushed me down behind the seats. He said, “There is a man shooting people.”

There was a lot of loud noise and screaming and I kept thinking, this has got to be a joke. A girl behind me screamed, “I’ve been shot!” There was so much blood coming down from the seats above me that I was blinking it into my eyeballs. I thought: OK, this has to be real, and this is it, the day I die. Then finally it stopped.

I started shaking Jon. He was lying forward on his chest and he had his head turned towards me and his eyes were closed and his mouth was just hanging a little bit open. I was shaking him, saying, “Jon, we got to go, we got to go”, but he wasn’t getting up.

Jon was in the military and he loved guns. He had three at home. He sometimes carried one with him but he didn’t have it that night. I heard there were others there who had weapons on them. If Jon had, there still would have been nothing he could do, not with that many civilians running about. My life is always going to be divided into before the shooting and after the shooting. I still have PTSD; it’s so hard for your brain to process that something so horrific could happen.

Sandy Phillips, mother of Jessica Ghawi, who was killed in the Aurora cinema shooting

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sandy Phillips and her husband. Photograph: Zed Nelson

My daughter Jessi had a friend visiting. Brent was a big Batman fan, and she really wanted to take him to the premiere. It was a midnight showing, and I had gone to bed. Brent phoned me and when I picked up I could hear screaming. He said, “There’s been a shooting… I think I’ve been shot twice, and it was at that moment that I thought, “Why isn’t Jessi calling me?” And I said, “Where’s Jessi?” And he said, “I’m sorry, I tried.” I said, “Brent, tell me Jessi’s OK”, and he said, “I’m sorry.” I started screaming.



Jessi was shot with .223 bullets. That is military-grade ammunition, meaning they’re made to do the most damage possible to the human body. They’re capable of going through walls, going through people into other people. Jessi was shot six times. The first bullet went through her thigh and into the other leg. As she was trying to stand and escape, she was shot three more times in the abdomen, once in the shoulder, and then in the head.

My husband and I sued the online dealer who sold the ammunition to the killer

We let these bullets be sold on the internet without a background or an ID check. And then we wonder why these things keep happening. My husband and I sued the online dealer who sold the ammunition to the killer. We didn’t do it for money; we sued simply to ask them to change their business practices.

In 2005 the Bush administration signed a law that protects the gun and ammunition industry, called PLCAA for short. So now they’re protected like no other industry in the United States. As a result, our case was thrown out of court on the first motion, and we were ordered to pay $264,000 (£200,000) in legal fees to the other side, which we don’t have. Even if we did, I’m not going to pay money to the seller of the bullets that helped kill my daughter. I just morally cannot do that; I’d rather go to jail. My husband’s 72 and I’m 66, and now we’re looking at having to declare bankruptcy and start again.

I used to work at Disney World for 11 years. I used to be Alice in Wonderland. But it’s like the veil got ripped off the night that Jessi was killed. Our world is nothing like it used to be. I don’t recognise my life any more.

I’m a gun owner and I’m not against guns. I’ve had a gun since I was 10 years old; I used to go hunting with my parents. I’m a very good shot. I am for the second amendment, but we have to remember how the second amendment begins, with the words, “a well-regulated militia”. When you’re losing thousands of citizens every year, that should be unacceptable to every American, whether you’re a gun owner or not.

Stefan Moton, survivor of the Aurora cinema shooting

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stefan Moton, 2016. Photograph: Zed Nelson

I went to school that day, came home and played basketball for a bit, took a shower, then went to the cinema.

I was with my brother. We got our tickets and sat in the middle top row. About 20 minutes into the movie, a gas canister suddenly flew in the air. At first we just thought it was just some kids pulling a prank. But when I heard the first gunshot, that’s when I knew it was serious. I got down on the floor, and there was just a big adrenaline rush of fear. You don’t know what’s going on and you don’t know what to do or where to go or how to act. It was kind of like a dream, everything in slow motion, but at the same time everything was moving fast.

Then I was hit. It was like my body had just frozen. I was still mentally aware of what was happening – the gunshots and people screaming and panicking all around – but I couldn’t move. Then I blacked out.

I woke up in the hospital. A bullet had hit my collarbone, then hit and damaged my spinal cord. Now I’m quadriplegic, paralysed from the chest down. They said I would never walk again but I don’t believe that. I just keep moving forward and getting better.

We need to figure out what’s going on, why people are going crazy in America. It’s a deadly combination of all the guns and all the people who are mentally damaged. You can buy a gun so easily, but you don’t know what’s going on with people in their mind. I think people who have guns should be registered and get evaluated regularly and take gun control classes.



