The actress says shielding her daughter from news of the Sandy Hook shooting wasn't the right way to 'protect' her.
Julianne Moore's motivation to speak out against gun violence was inspired by her daughter, Liv Freundlich.
In a conversation with People about the Wear Orange campaign in honor of National Gun Violence Awareness Day on Friday, the 56-year-old actress opened up about what sparked her advocacy for gun safety, recalling the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
"My daughter was 10 and was coming to work with me on a movie set. I asked hair, makeup, crew and other actors, 'Please don’t mention this to her.' I was going to wait to tell her with her dad," Moore said. "But somebody posted something about it on her monitored Instagram account. She said, 'Mommy, did a bunch of little kids get shot today?'"
"It occurred to me that I wasn’t protecting my daughter by trying to keep the news away from her, so I wanted to get involved," she added.
Moore said she then reached out to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, and in 2015, started the Everytown Creative Council, gathering stars like Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Schumer, Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Aniston to take action.
"This is not an anti-gun or pro-gun argument. It’s a safety issue. In our country we have a right to bear arms. But we also have a responsibility to bear arms safely. On an average day, seven kids or teens are killed by guns. With regulation, you reduce deaths," she said. "We’re not talking about something outrageous. We’re talking about closing the background loophole, when guns are allowed to be sold without background checks, so there are fewer illegal guns in the world."
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"If we can manage to do that, that’s a pretty awesome thing and something we need to ask our legislators to do as well," she shared.
Like Moore, Schumer is a big advocate of gun safety. See more in the video below.