President Obama gun-control call joined by Liberty High School grads' son

President Barack Obama introduced Grant Fritz, 8, to a national audience at Wednesday's televised signing of executive orders on weapons measures.

When Lisa Carlin and her 8-year-old son, Grant Fritz, mailed letters last month to President Barack Obama asking him for help in curbing gun violence following the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the pair never expected an answer.

Carlin, a 1998 Liberty High School graduate now living in Maryland, walked with her son to place both letters in the mailbox.

"Mom, now what?," she recalled Grant asking.

"I told him, 'Don't expect an answer, but trust that somebody read this,'" she replied.

A few weeks later, they got their answer.

Carlin and Grant, along with her daughter, Abby Fritz, 6, and mother, Angela Carlin of Hanover Township, Northampton County, were invited to stand with Obama on Wednesday as he unveiled the most sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in two decades. Three other families who wrote similar letters out of hundreds received also joined the president.

Obama pressed a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines such as the ones used in the shooting that claimed 26 lives at the Newtown, Conn., school. He also used his presidential powers to enact 23 measures that don’t require the backing of lawmakers.

The president’s executive actions include ordering federal agencies to make more data available for background checks, appointing a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and directing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence.

Discussing Sandy Hook

"I think for Grant, writing the letter and then attending the event were empowering," Carlin said Wednesday night. "As a mother, I felt it was important to have a conversation with my son about what had happened. I wanted him to have awareness of the complexity of these issues."

Obama introduced Grant -- whose father, Jason Fritz, is also a 1998 Liberty grad -- and four other young letter-writers during Wednesday's televised executive order signing.

"These are some pretty smart letters from some pretty smart young people," said the president, who quoted from Grant's letter: "I think there should be some changes. We should learn from what happened in Sandy Hook. I feel really bad."

Prior to the announcement, Carlin said the families had a few minutes to meet Obama, shake hands, chat and take photographs. During the event, the families were brought onto the stage and Obama gave the children high fives and hugs, she said.

"We then talked about what a great lesson today was -- engaging with your government and country," Carlin said in a telephone interview. "This was a very significant event for
Grant and certainly for me. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski attended the White House news conference as a representative of the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Pawlowski said the proposed ban on assault weapons is long overdue and called his fellow Democrat's proposals logical, reasoned and common sense. But he, too, acknowledged they would be difficult to get through Congress.

"If this was a piece of equipment in a building that caused a crash, or a malfunction in a plane that caused it to crash, or medication that was defective that caused people to die, they'd be calling for hearings and demanding answers," Pawlowski said.

"Yet time and time again we have these mass shootings and instead of looking for answers, they want to ignore that these issues even exist," he said. "What the president did today is say, Enough is enough, we're not going to put up with this anymore."

Pawlowski sees local aid

Pawlowski said he believes Obama's proposals would have a major impact throughout the Lehigh Valley.

Much of the discussion about the assault weapon ban has revolved around the AR-15, a military-style weapon used by gunman Adam Lanza in the Newtown shooting.

Pawlowski noted the AR-15 is the same weapon allegedly used by Del Robyn Fenty, who is accused of firing at least two dozen shots at Allentown police officers Sept. 4 as they responded to a domestic dispute.

The mayor also praised Obama's push for new gun trafficking laws to prohibit "straw purchases," when someone who cannot legally purchase a gun has someone else buy it for them.

A handgun acquired through a straw purchase in Whitehall Township was reportedly used in a Jan. 3 police shootout in a New York City subway that left an Allentown man dead.

"What the president is talking about today has real-world consequences on stuff that we deal with and talk about every day," Pawlowski said.