Jewish Rampage Survivor Issues Gun Control Call
Mission in Life: Joshua Stepakoff talks about his campaign to curb gun violence. Image by nbc news
Joshua Stepakoff was just 6 years old when he was shot and wounded in a 1999 shooting rampage at his suburban Los Angeles preschool.
Now 19, he wants to know why more hasn’t been done to curb gun violence in America.
“If now is not the right time, when is? People are shot every day… People need to realize this,” Stepakoff told NBC News.
Stepakoff was attending a day camp at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills when a disturbed gunman with a semi-automatic rifle burst into the lobby.
The gunman fired dozens of rounds, hitting an adult employee, a 16-year-old counselor, and three children, including Stepakoff, who was shot in the lower leg and hip.
All of the victims recovered.
Stepakoff, now a college student, spoke out after the shooting spree that left 28 people dead in Newtown, Conn.
He called on lawmakers to restore the lapsed federal restriction on the sale of assault weapons; and strengthen pre-sale background checks.
“I think some changes could be made without truly interfering with Second Amendment rights,” he told NBC.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
