Democrat Rebecca Bennett campaigns with Gabby Giffords in push to flip House seat

NEW PROVIDENCE — Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, whose gun safety group has spent big to unseat Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in North Jersey’s 7th District, visited New Jersey Wednesday to stump for Kean’s Democratic challenger, Rebecca Bennett, in the state’s most competitive congressional race.

Giffords’ stop at the New Providence Memorial Library, where she joined Bennett and local advocates for a roundtable discussion on reducing gun violence, came as polls show affordability remains voters’ top priority with the election just a month away.

But the gun lobby’s systematic effort to dismantle New Jersey’s famously tough gun laws through the courts underscores the need for voters to elect representatives who support background checks, secure storage requirements, assault weapon bans, and “red-flag laws” that allow authorities to seize firearms from people deemed dangerous, the panelists said.

“We have federal agencies, the federal courts, and Congress itself that are taking actions to weaken gun regulations and undercut the laws that states like New Jersey have passed. So that is why this is so important. This moment and this seat,” said Assemblyman Vincent Kearney (D-Union).

Bennett, a former Navy pilot, said she’s ready to “turn the seat blue in November, so we can have a gun safety majority in Congress next year.”

“This is absolutely going to be a priority for me,” she said. “We are traumatizing a generation of kids because our elected officials in Washington are failing to solve this crisis that we are dealing with in this country.”

Bennett had a very receptive audience, with red-shirted members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America filling every row and applauding throughout. Andrea Podgarsky, who co-leads the group’s elections advocacy, said flipping Kean’s seat is one of their main goals this year.

The panelists included a range of people impacted by gun violence.

Giffords survived being shot in the head in 2011 during a “Congress in Your Corner” event in her Tucson, Arizona, district, where a gunman opened fire, murdering six people and injuring 12 others.

“Words once came easily. Today I struggle to speak. But I’ve not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out, even when you have to fight to find the words,” Giffords said.

Kimberly Banks lost her 19-year-old son, Samaad Z. Frazier, to gun violence in 2019 and afterward started a group, One Family One Fight, to advocate for more and better prevention. She told listeners her son was slain in Somerville by five people, including two 16-year-olds, two 18-year-olds, and a 21-year-old. New Jersey law prohibits people under 18 from buying any firearms and those under 21 from purchasing handguns.

“How did they get these guns? How was this even possible? We need to keep guns out of the hands of people legally prohibited from having them,” Banks said.

She implored Bennett, if she makes it to Congress, to prioritize cracking down on illegal gun trafficking and investing in mental health and career-readiness programs focused on helping at-risk youth.

“When gun violence has taken so many lives, prevention cannot wait,” Banks said.

Union County Sheriff Pete Corvelli and Kearney, a former 911 dispatcher who’s now a deputy in Corvelli’s department, talked about how loosening restrictions on things like large-capacity magazines, silencers, and assault weapons endangers officers and echoed Banks’ call for more federal action on illegal guns.

“Four out of five crime guns in New Jersey are traced and were originally purchased in other states. That’s a gap in federal law, and that’s why who we send to Washington really matters,” Kearney said.

Bennett bashed President Donald Trump’s record on gun safety, noting that he eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, made it harder to regulate firearm sales, and cut federal funding for community violence intervention and mental health programs.

Kean has Trump’s endorsement, and the National Rifle Association gave him a B grade (Bennett got an F) in their recent ratings of political candidates who’ll be on November’s ballot.

“It’s very clear we need to make a change in Washington,” Bennett said. “I’m going to work every day to make sure that we are keeping our kids and our communities safe, unlike my opponent, Tom Kean Jr., who is just going to do whatever the National Republican Party tells him to do. I want your kids and mine to be free from gun violence, and you can count on me to do just that.”