"My son went to school one day and then he never came back home."
This father is spending every day outside the White House until he meets with the president to discuss gun safety ... And he's not taking no for an answer.
This father is spending every day outside the White House until he meets with the president to discuss gun safety ... And he's not taking no for an answer.
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00:00Manuel Oliver here from Washington, D.C. reporting our second day in front of the White House
00:05waiting for a meeting with President Biden.
00:08This is my fourth day, day number seven, day number eight.
00:12Manuel Oliver is the father of a school shooting victim.
00:16He has decided to spend every day outside the White House until President Biden agrees
00:21to speak with him about gun safety laws.
00:24I spoke to him on his eighth day in front of the White House.
00:27And I am right here in front of the White House.
00:30I lost my son, Joaquin, at the Portland shooting four years ago.
00:37The day that I lost my son, I lost my best friend.
00:42And that hurts.
00:44His son, Joaquin, was 17 years old when he was killed in 2018.
00:48Ever since, Manuel and his wife, Patricia, have been fighting tirelessly to prevent this
00:53from happening to others.
00:54Joaquin went to school one day, and then he never came back home.
00:59So that made my wife, Patricia, and myself start working on preventing gun violence projects
01:10just like that.
01:11And after four years, we heard that just a few days ago there was another shooting in
01:19Oxford.
01:22And then I said, you know what, if we haven't learned anything from the last four years,
01:29we need to do something in a different way.
01:31We need to try something different, like we need to change the strategy.
01:35On December 1st, one day after the deadliest school shooting of 2021, which claimed the
01:40lives of four teenagers in Michigan, Manuel boarded a flight to D.C. with a mission.
01:45Right now I'm in Fort Lauderdale International Airport on my way to D.C.
01:50I don't have a formal invitation.
01:52There is no time for that.
01:54I want an explanation why three kids died yesterday.
01:57Two years ago, Manuel had met Biden during his campaign trail to discuss Biden's plan
02:02on gun control.
02:03I asked Manuel what he would ask the president if he were to meet him again, but he was quick
02:07to correct me. It's not if he meets him.
02:10It's when.
02:11I don't want to I don't want to think that if I get the meeting, when I get the meeting
02:15with Biden, I will start by offering my
02:20support to whatever plan he has in mind.
02:25Where is that plan?
02:27What is it that you're trying to address immediately?
02:30And and besides that, asking him
02:35to declare this a national emergency and to declare war on gun
02:40violence. A week ago, when I started coming here, by
02:44meaning probably 800 victims of gun violence ago,
02:50they told me that they were decorating Christmas inside the White House.
02:55That really offended me in a way that very
02:59few things have before, because I know that I will
03:04never, ever again decorate Christmas at home.
03:09So I had no plans for this Christmas.
03:12I came here and I still don't have any plan.
03:15My plan is to wait for Biden to receive me, and hopefully that
03:20will happen sooner than later.
03:22At one point during our conversation, he had to put me on hold.
03:25He was receiving an important call, one that could maybe get him one step closer to the
03:30White House.
03:30I have to take a call right now from the Senate.
03:33So if we can connect in a minute, that will be awesome.
03:36OK, that was a call from from Senate, from a member of the Senate.
03:41And he will join me today.
03:44So that's good, because now we have more political
03:49figures understanding that this is only going to help them.
03:53He later told me that it was Senator Chris Murphy who, on the day of the recent school
03:58shooting, gave a powerful speech condemning gun violence.
04:01There's no other nation in the high income world in which kids worry about being
04:06shot when they go to school.
04:09It happens here in America because we choose to let it happen.
04:12While many bills on gun control have been drafted, Manuel is frustrated with the amount
04:17of time it is taking for these bills to become law.
04:21Meanwhile, thousands of people die to gun violence every year.
04:25At this moment, there are only bills there.
04:27They won't get into Senate and Senate won't discuss them because they don't want to do
04:32that. However, bills don't save lives.
04:36OK, laws probably save lives.
04:40The president has the ability to to put some laws together by executive orders.
04:45And that is exactly why I need to talk to the president.
04:49How is it possible that the most powerful nation in the world, that's how some
04:54people call America, is not able to fix that problem, that inside
04:59problem, a war that they are having with themselves?
05:03How is it that we cannot fix that?
05:05At the end of her call, I asked Manuel, where did he find the strength to keep fighting
05:10despite gun violence increasing?
05:12Because people like you, because you want to know the story and you want to share it
05:17because people like the congressman that just called me, because there is a lot of
05:22people out here that agrees with what I do.
05:25And that's the incentive of me being
05:31vocal and raising Joaquin's voice.
05:33I am a father.
05:34I am Joaquin's dad.
05:37And that hasn't stopped.
05:39That that didn't end on February 14th, four years ago.
05:42I'm still Joaquin's dad.
05:44So I have to do things that fathers do.
05:47So my my one and only fight is honoring
05:51the legacy of my son, Joaquin, and all the other victims.
05:56Since Joaquin was shot, more than one hundred and fifty thousand
06:01people have died because of gun violence in America.
06:04So we have done very little.
06:08We have more victims than before.
06:10We have more weapons than before.
06:12We still manufacture guns and there are still people making money on an industry
06:18that it's that it's killing our own citizens.
06:21I think there is hope, not immediate hope.
06:26But I think that things won't happen by themselves.
06:30We have to show that we are offended
06:34and we need to do things like the one that we're doing here.