Moms Push Confirmation of Surgeon General Nominee at Gun Control Rally

Dozens of moms gathered on Capitol Hill Tuesday to urge officials to confirm the nominee for U.S. Surgeon General, who wants to call gun violence a "public health issue."

Anne Haynes, the wife of an Alexandria man gunned down in his home last year, was one of those moms. Haynes' husband, 69-year-old Ron Kirby, was found shot to death last November.

Haynes joined the group "Moms Rising" to hand-deliver a petition with over 200,000 signatures to the U.S. Senate Tuesday.

The group is showing their support for U.S. Surgeon General nominee Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has called gun violence a "public health issue."

News4 Reporter Kristin Wright talked with Haynes Tuesday after the group gathered for a church rally in Southeast.

"Why anyone would come into somebody's house with an automatic -- with some type of military gun and kill somebody?" Haynes asked. "I don't know, I still don't understand what happened." 

Along with several parents and children, Dr. Sanjeev Sriram was one of several pediatricians who attended the rally. 

"We don't lose children to cancer; we don't lose children to heart defects," Sriram said. "We don't lose children to infections the way we lost children to gun violence."

Haynes said the "Mom's Rising" group is advocating for stricter gun laws.

"We need a ban on these military type guns and huge magazines and we need to have common sense regulation of who gets a gun," Haynes said.

No arrests have been made in Kirby's death, but authorities believe 53-year-old Charles Severance may be linked to Kirby's death and the unsolved murders of Realtor Nancy Dunning a decade ago and music teacher Ruthanne Lodato in February 2014.

The NRA has been critical of that classification. "Moms Rising" claims the NRA is working to derail Murthy's confirmation because of his views on gun violence.

"To keep this eminently qualified doctor from serving as the nation’s foremost champion of public health for a view held by the entire medical and public health establishment is outrageous," the group wrote on its Facebook page.

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