LOS ANGELES (AP) – Richard Martinez thinks of his son every day, and with those thoughts come the constant reminder of a young life cut tragically short by another man with a gun.
That is why, the 61-year-old attorney says, he crisscrosses the country, poking and prodding people to support what he calls reasonable gun-control laws. It has become his life.
“I’m not anti-gun,” Martinez is quick to say. “I’m anti-gun violence.”
Martinez had just gotten off the phone with his son, Christopher Michaels-Martinez, on the night of May 23, 2014, when the sophomore English major at the University of California, Santa Barbara, decided he would head to a nearby deli for something to eat. Within minutes, Michaels-Martinez would become one of six UCSB students killed by Elliot Rodger, an emotionally troubled 22-year-old toting three semi-automatic weapons and more than 400 rounds of ammunition.
The next day Michael-Martinez’s father would become the public face of grief when he traveled from his central California home and stepped in front of TV cameras for the first time. He shouted that his son had died because of “craven, irresponsible politicians” who lacked courage to enact responsible gun-control laws.