Pima Attorney Conover Calls for Gun Control

Following are the remarks of Pima Attorney Laura Conover, who spoke at the July 16, 2023, gun violence prevention rally at Tucson’s Jan. 8 Memorial.

Our local story in Tucson has continued. Unfortunately, in 2020 Covid brought so many things, including a terrible increase in gun violence and a homicide spike.

By the time I arrived at the Pima County Attorney’s Office in 2021, we had 144 homicides going back to 2017, waiting for resolution, and we took in a record-breaking 116 more in Pima County in 2021.

This will shock you. Unfortunately, I think this will be a surprise to so many of you here that in my first two years alone, we had four mass casualty incidents more. The first one in the Western Hills neighborhood attracted a lot of attention because of the extraordinary efforts by a good Samaritan who ran toward gunfire instead of away.

The second gained attention just two blocks east of here at the Amtrak station, where a law enforcement officer sacrificed his life to gunfire, and then we had two more that didn’t even make the news on the south and the west sides. But it made our news, that kind of trauma in my office. Our prosecutors were walking around like exhausted ghosts, day and night.

We cannot and will not give up on the Oliver family, the Green family, the Roll family, and all the families that came on this bus nationwide. We share in your grief, we see and recognize your grief, but your strength empowers us. I am so honored to be here with you, with all of you, and we will not be silenced as we demand sensible reforms wanted so badly by 85% of the country.

Until our children feel safe again in classrooms, we will not stand down.

Hear Laura Conover speak at LD18’s meeting on Tuesday, August 22, 2023, starting at 6:30 pm. 

Register here for the meeting.