Telemachus “Tel” Orfanos, 27, escaped the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history only to be killed by a fellow veteran at a bar in his hometown Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Wednesday.
Orfanos, a Navy veteran, was one of 12 people killed at Borderline Bar & Grill late Wednesday when Marine veteran Ian David Long opened fire at the popular country music nightspot. A little over one year ago, on Oct. 1, 2017, Orfanos was at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival when a gunman killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more.
“My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn’t come home last night,” said his mother, Susan Orfanos.
Now, Susan Orfanos says, it’s time for America to do something about gun control.
She shook with sadness and rage as she gave reporters her message on Thursday, “No more guns.”
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Orfanos said she would refuse to accept the toothless condolences typical after mass shootings in the U.S.
“I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control,” she said to reporters.
A substitute teacher, Orfanos said that if there had not been change since previous shootings, she wasn’t sure what kind of massacre could make a difference, according to the Washington Post.
“If mowing down 5-year-olds at Sandy Hook didn’t make an impression, nothing will,” Orfanos said.
Tel Orfanos was hardly anti-gun, his father, Marc Orfanos told the Washington Post. He was a Navy veteran and a gun hobbyist, who frequented shooting ranges and asked his parents if he could keep a gun in the house while he was living with them. His parents wouldn’t let him.
“My take is that if there’s a gun in the house, there’s always a possibility of an accident, or of suicide. It increases the odds,” Marc Orfanos said.
Marc Orfanos said that he blamed the country’s “gun culture” for the prevalence of mass shootings.
It is time, Marc Orfanos said, “get real and put an end to this violence.”