R.I.P., DIANNE....9/30/23

I clearly remember that day, November 27, 1978. We were living in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time.

I was listening to the radio at work when regular programing was interrupted to broadcast a hastily arranged press conference hosted by Diane Feinstein, the president of the SF Board of Supervisors.

She announced that Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, the nation's only elected gay official at the time, had been shot and killed at City Hall. There were audible gasps from the reporters gathered there. She went on to say that the suspect was Dan White, one of her colleagues on the board.

Feinstein described how, after hearing the shots, she went down to Moscone's office only to find the mayor on the floor bleeding from multiple wounds. She said she searched for a pulse in his neck and found none.

Since that fateful day, Dianne Feinstein was a relentless advocate for gun control until her death yesterday.

She was instrumental in passing the Assault Weapons ban in 1994, after which Republicans in Congress allowed it to expire 10 years later in 2004.

Since then, close to a million people have been killed by guns in the United States.