4,368. Think about that number. 4,368. Not dollars. Not square footage. We are talking 4,368 lives. Children’s lives. This is the number of children killed by bullets since 2020. 4,368. Now these lives taken are being represented by a mile-long yellow school bus procession peacefully and solemnly driving from Houston to NRA supporter, Senator Ted Cruz’s house.
4,368.
Named “The NRA Children’s Museum,” this project, supported by ChangeTheRef, is the latest by artist Manuel Oliver, father of Joaquin.
The convoy is made up of 52 school buses, whose empty seats represent the 4,368 children who would have sat there but instead fell victim to gun violence. The NRA Children’s Museum will be on display in the lead bus.
This unthinkable collection will be filled with photos, videos, audio recordings, and personal memories of the children who have lost their lives to shootings since 2020 – from a Nickelodeon backpack from Santa Clarita, California to a girl scout sash from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
On this bus, you’ll find a backpack belonging to 15-year-old Gracie Muehlberger, killed at her Santa Clarita high school in 2019; a kindergarten graduation card with a smiling teddy bear on it, awarded to Sandy Hook victim Chase Kowalski; and a LeBron James Miami Heat jersey adored by Joaquin Oliver, who died in the Parkland school shooting in 2018.
Why Cruz’s house? Senator Cruz is the leading recipient of gun lobbyist funding in the State of Texas ($749,000 total).
“Ted Cruz and the NRA, who enable assault rifles to be the best-selling gun on America’s streets, the child death toll this year has hit an all-time high. According to the CDC, since 2020, firearms have overtaken car accidents to become the leading cause of death in children (4,368). Despite this tragic theme, Senators and House members representing Texas have received more than $14 million in contributions from gun rights interests over their careers,” states a press release.
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“To commemorate this horrific historic moment, we are showing American voters the toll these politicians have taken on our children’s lives with this all-too-real archive,” said Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was one of the 17 victims in the 2018 Parkland, Florida massacre. Manuel co-founded Change the Ref with his wife Patricia in Joaquin’s memory. “And this is only the beginning. We will not stop with Sen. Ted Cruz. To every politician who has stood by, taken NRA money, and refused to listen to the people they represent: the museum is on the way to honor you next.”
“We want to display, for the voters who keep these politicians in office, the consequences of those choices. We want voters to remember which politicians are in the pocket of the NRA when they visit the polls in November,” added Patricia Oliver. “We urge everyone to join us in our mission to fight for every innocent soul lost to gun violence and to demand universal background checks on gun sales.”
As a part of the mobile museum, Manuel and Patricia Oliver will present Sen. Cruz with a “gift”: a letter from their son, Joaquin Oliver, asking for background checks on gun sales written when he was 12, less than five years before the Parkland tragedy that took his life. The hope is that this gift will spark a realization and understanding that receiving political donations from the NRA and other gun lobbyists isn’t worth an innocent child’s life.
Change The Ref is calling on Sen. Cruz to immediately renounce future political funding from the NRA and listen to the people’s will to enact legislation for universal background checks – a commonsense gun law reform that an overwhelming percentage of his constituents in Texas support, including Republican voters.
According to BuzzFeed, Oliver said he was asked to leave the senator’s property by security, where he asked them a few questions from the sidewalk.
ChangeTheRef has made a lot of noise in the last year with their Lost Class which has swepet most advertising award shows and is now nominated for an Emmy.
A petition to demand that lawmakers take action in requiring universal background checks is available at ChangeTheRef.org.
4,368.
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Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on Twitter at @colinthewriter1
