Originally published on WFMZ-TV 69 News

By 69 News


WASHINGTON - Reading's representative in Congress is taking aim at an issue that has greatly impacted the city in recent months.

"We must do more to reduce gun violence," freshman Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said Tuesday morning in a post on Twitter.

The Democrat made the statement in announcing that she has invited Michelle Roberson to be her guest at President Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Roberson is the mother of Bianca Roberson, a young woman who lost her life in a violent case of road rage near West Chester nearly two years ago.

The recent high school graduate was on a shopping trip for college on the afternoon of June 28, 2017, when she was fatally shot while driving along Route 100 in West Goshen Township, Chester County.

The suspect, David Desper, is serving 20 to 40 years in state prison for his third-degree murder conviction.

During Desper's sentencing hearing in December, a tearful Michelle Roberson told the court she'll never "get to hear that word, 'Mom,' again."

Houlahan represents all of Chester County and part of Berks County, including all of Reading, which has seen an uptick in gun violence in recent months.

"We're not an island," Reading Mayor Wally Scott said during a news conference that followed a triple homicide in the city in December. "We need help."

Reading began 2018 with a shooting that claimed four lives inside a home on South Third Street.

Several other people in attendance in the House chamber Tuesday night will also represent the fight against gun violence, including the guest of Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, another freshman Democrat who also represents part of Berks County.

"Gun violence kills 40,000 Americans every year – and another 80,000 are wounded in the crossfire," Dean said. "Surrounding these victims are entire communities that suffer too."

Dean's guest, Jamie Amo, of Willow Grove, Montgomery County, is a gun safety activist and survivor of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

"I would like to hear our President address and endorse H.R. 8, so that we may begin to reduce gun violence in America," Amo said.

H.R. 8 is a bill introduced last month that would require a background check for every firearm sale. Dean and Houlahan are co-sponsors of the legislation.

Amo's emergence as an activist took place after seeing the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, unfold last year.

"Our schools should be safe and joyous places where kids can grow and thrive," Dean said. "Yet today, our children participate in active shooter drills and lockdown exercises. Our elected leaders burden our children with fear and anxiety – when they should be standing up to the gun lobby. We can do better than this."

A survivor of the Parkland school shooting, Cameron Kasky, will serve as California U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell's guest.

Kasky, 18, played a key role in organizing the March for Our Lives protest last year.

This year's State of the Union address comes just days before the first anniversary of the Parkland shooting, which claimed 17 lives on February 14, 2018.

The 20-year-old suspect is awaiting trial on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder. His attorneys have said he will plead guilty in exchange for a life prison sentence, but prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Serving as two of President Trump's guests will be Timothy Matson and Judah Samet, survivors of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh last October.

Matson, a member of the Pittsburgh Police Department's SWAT team, was a first responder at the attack.

"He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and saved countless lives in that heinous, anti-Semitic attack," the White House said in announcing the president's guest list.

You can watch the president's State of the Union address live on 69-WFMZ-TV and on WFMZ.com at 9 p.m.