Womxn, Guns, and the COVID Pandemic
By Rachael Joseph and Kate Ranta
We have both survived unimaginable violence. In fact, we met through our shared passion for gun control activism. In the many years we fought together to tighten our nation’s gun laws, an unbreakable bond between us formed. We see this happen often among gun violence survivors — on the surface our stories appear very different — but as we become closer, we find comfort, friendship, and sisterhood in our many similarities.
Kate is a survivor of domestic and gun violence. Her abusive ex-husband shot her and her father in 2012. Kate’s then 4-year-old son witnessed the shooting. Miraculously, everyone survived and Kate’s ex was sentenced to 60 years in prison. She wrote a book, Killing Kate, about her experience. Kate is a public figure in advocacy and activism against domestic violence. She has been through hell, but she has worked to put her life back together and continues to speak truth to power about violence against womxn.
Rachael is a survivor of childhood sexual assault and gun violence. She survived multiple sexual assaults at age five. No arrests were ever made. When Rachael was twenty-five years old, her aunt Shelley was…
