In an attempt to influence it’s decision on a New York concealed carry law and and Second Amendment laws, eight survivors of shootings gave a first hand account of their experiences to the Supreme Court. In a brief titled “friend of the court”, the survivors explained how their lives have been directly affected by gun violence.

The brief was filed by law firm Hogan Lovells for March For Our Lives. Founded by students following the 2018 school shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, March For Our Lives is a youth-led gun violence prevention organization. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for November 3.

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The brief  includes a detailed experience of Samantha Mayor, who was shot in the knee.

Mayor, who was 16 at the time, as per the brief, was at first “dazed and in disbelief” and she did not realize she had been shot until her teacher called to report the number of students who had been injured in her classroom.

“I started telling myself that it was okay. I was coming to terms with dying,” Mayor said in the brief, describing the aftermath of the shooting, as per CNN reports. 

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 Victoria Gwynn, who at 19, was shot while gathering with friends at a park in Louisville, Kentucky, in June and Maggie Montoya, who witnessed and survived the mass shooting that killed 10 at a King Soopers in Boulder, Colorado, in March.

Gwynn’s best friend did not survive the shooting. Her own brother had also previously died by gun violence in 2019.

“You can see someone, talk to someone, and in a minute, they are not here anymore. You have to cherish every moment you have with the people you love,” Gwynn said.

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The brief further contains the experiences of Elimar Depaula, who was paralyzed below the waist after being shot in 2019.

The stories of Selene San Felice, a survivor of the 2018 shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, DeAndra Dycus, whose son was shot in 2014, and Michigan state Senator Dayna Polehanki, who was in the Michigan state capitol building in 2020, when armed protesters poured into the building were also covered.