Family of Ariz. shooting victim may be at White House for guns announcement

PHOENIX — The parents of the youngest victim of the shooting that wounded then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said they have been invited to the White House for what they expect will be the announcement of President Barack Obama's widely anticipated executive action on gun control Tuesday morning.

Five years ago this week, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green was the only child among the six killed Jan. 8, 2011, in a shooting in a grocery-store parking lot outside Tucson. Thirteen other people, including Giffords, were wounded when the gunman tried to assassinate the congresswoman and then fired into the scattering crowd.

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John and Roxanna Green said they do not know any details about Obama's plan, which he discussed in his most recent radio address. But because of their invitation to attend, John Green expects it will be a "significant announcement."

Green said Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, also have been invited to attend. A spokesman for Americans for Responsible Solutions, the lobbying group founded by Giffords and Kelly, would not comment Sunday on the report.

In his last radio address, Obama said that his resolution for 2016 was to complete "unfinished business" and that tackling gun violence was at the top of the list.

The president said he would move ahead on his own because Congress had failed to address the growing problem. He said he planned to meet with his attorney general Monday and, while he did not cite specific measures, recently directed his staff to look into possible executive actions, such as expanding background checks.

The indications of a coming announcement about gun control triggered early criticism from Republican presidential candidates. Democrat Hillary Clinton, campaigning in New Hampshire, applauded the expected executive move, saying in a statement that she believed the president would take action to require more sellers to conduct background checks.

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Members of Arizona's congressional delegation said they did not yet have details on Obama's plans. Rep. Trent Franks' spokeswoman Destiny Edwards told The Republic that Franks could not speak specifically to Obama's action, but said he "will not support anything that Barack Obama would do to diminish the Second Amendment by executive order."

In the first months after their daughter was killed, Roxanna and John Green stayed out of the debate over gun control and mental-health care.

Instead they started a memorial foundation and did good deeds in their daughter's name. They built playgrounds and bought books and computers for schools. Every December, they run a toy drive collecting thousands of toys and bikes for needy kids.

But John Green said they found they couldn't stay silent on the issue for long. Not after the 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead and 70 wounded, and especially not after the shooting a few months later at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 children and 6 adult staff members dead.

"We had to speak up," John Green said. "We decided we couldn't be silent any more about our feelings."

Since then, Roxanna Green has become a national advocate for the prevention of gun violence. It has been more difficult for John Green.

His wife is an activist at heart, he explains, like her mother who campaigned for Obama and taught her daughter and grandchildren the power of community service.

She's a Democrat; he's a Republican.

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John Green is a longtime hunter, raised in a hunting family, and a former member of the National Rifle Association.

But he said he believes something has to be done. Just as the Greens have found ways to deal with their differences, John Green said they believe there is plenty of middle ground for moderate gun regulation without a compromise of the Second Amendment.

"What we need to do is have a conversation, to have some sort of compromise," he said.

"It's like having an argument with your wife. Sometimes you can win the argument and lose the war. The war here is, how are we going to help the country and our children's future? We're not going to do it by creating these standoffs."

Contributing: Rebekah L. Sanders and Dan Nowicki