Moms Demand Action - Gunsense Candidate Distinction

TW: Domestic Violence and long post, but Important.
I am at once extremely proud and also hesitant today to talk about my latest campaign announcement because it also very much crosses into my personal life. I've been selected by the group Moms Demand Action, a group formed after the Sandy Hook shooting as one of their Gun Sense Candidates. I join other politicians Vermonters can vote for this year like Joe Biden, Tim Ashe, Rebecca Holcombe, David Zuckerman, Brenda Seigel and TJ Donovan. Multiple candidates in a race can receive this distinction to be clear but for me this is extremely powerful and personal for reasons I'm about to share. I share this story after also speaking with my family to make sure they were also comfortable and aware that I was going to be talking about our early childhood back when I started my campaign.
When I was a boy around 12 years old my stepfather (who has since passed away) had a drinking problem. It was a difficult time for our family, money was tight and so he would work on fishing trips hours away from Vermont and try to be home when he could on the weekends. My mother also had to work and at the time she was doing evenings as a restaurant hostess while I was home watching my younger brother and sisters. Obviously this was a hard time for everyone but when alcohol gets involved, bad situations can become so much worse. My stepfather owned several guns and there was one evening in particular when he was supposed to be returning from a fishing trip. Instead of his coming straight home though, I got a frantic call from my mother begging me to go into their bedroom, find his guns and hide them. He was in a rage at being away, likely jealous and completely drunk so he had stopped by my Mother's workplace first to confront her before she made that call home to me only when he got into his truck to come to the house. She was going to try to get home as soon as she could.
I was terrified. But this wasn't the first time I'd seen my stepfather angry and drunk. With my brother's help we got my sisters (Sleeping at the time) into the beds in our room, raced to grab his firearms and stash them the best we could. Time was short though and some of my memories of this night are impossibly vivid. I remember seeing the headlights coming down the driveway and, wanting to pretend we were already asleep to avoid any confrontation I shoved his handgun between my mattress and the wall before pulling the covers over my sister and me who thankfully had remained asleep. We were in the dark in our room when we started hearing the sounds, and I don't know if it was after a few minutes or 30 but I do remember the sounds. My stepfather tossing his bedroom. He was ransacking drawers, pushing over clothing cabinets, flipping the mattress. He was looking for the gun that was two feet from my head. My mother had been -so- right to call home ahead of his arrival. I don't know what would have happened if he'd been able to find them that night.
He came into our room next. After searching everywhere else he turned on the lights to the room my brother and I shared and came in and we pretended to be asleep. I was afraid to open my eyes but I could feel him standing over us, watching for what felt like forever. I had to force myself to breathe deeply and regularly to not give it away. If the covers got moved or he forced us up then he could have seen the handle of his gun there, stashed in a rush to simply get it anyplace he wouldn't find it. It worked though. The lights got flipped off and after a few more minutes I heard the front doors open again and his truck start up and take off. This was possibly the only chance we'd get and so in a Vermont winter, with my 6 year old sister in my arms the four of us kids fled the house without coats, barely with shoes on because we just knew we needed to get -out-. We needed to get to a neighbor; To anywhere else and we couldn't walk along the road at risk of being seen so we pushed into the waist deep drifts because who knew what would happen if we stayed?
I grew up in the Northeast Kingdom where that same stepfather took me hunting and where there can be respect around guns and firearms. But I have -survived- the instances where it's about more than that. We know having a history of domestic violence must mean taking action to reduce someone's ability to do harm. My stepfather, later in life and after I was out of the house became a much better man. A good man. Caring. Loving. But even before he passed away I could never bring myself to ask him if he regretted the past, or if he even remember a night that's formed a core part of who I am. I'm sharing this now, with my friends and family and the public because as a candidate for office when I take a stand on reducing gun violence and suicide I will point to this and say 'Now you know why.' and I think anyone wanting to vote for me deserves to know.