open to the stage eddie weingart. >> thank you. good afternoon, my name is eddie weingart. in the early evening of february 22, 1981 my mother's estranged ex-husband came to our house and intoxicated and enraged. after an hour of his abuse he went to his truck, retreat a shotgun that he had brought with him. my mother saw this and ran toward me and before she could reach me the car and fired his shotgun, blasting her in the back. her lifeless body fell less than two feet away from me. she walked over to me, press the barrel of the shotgun against now, attempting to fire it several times. if it hadn't been for a malfunction in the firing mechanism, i would not be speaking to you today. i can still see and smell her blood pooling around me. i was only 2 and a half years old when she was taken from me and my life forever changed. i grew up in my childhood and into my early adult life with acute ptsd and my legs are still haunted extremely by vivid flashbacks of that deadly day. i became an activist for gun violence prevention and the movement in my early teens and over the yea