California Dem invites father of student killed in Isla Vista shooting to SOTU

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) is bringing the father of a slain University of California-Santa Barbara student  as her guest to the State of the Union.

Six people died and 13 others were injured in the May 2014 shooting in Isla Vista, Calif., on the University of California’s Santa Barbara campus.

{mosads}Capps’s guest will be Richard Martinez, the father of deceased student Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez.

“It has been nearly eight months since the Isla Vista community — and the nation — was rocked by the unspeakable violence in I.V.,” Capps said in a statement. “And the State of the Union is an important time to highlight that we will not let this issue fade without action.”

Capps said she plans to re-introduce legislation to allow concerned family members to go to court to obtain an order preventing someone posing a threat to themselves or others from having a gun.

Martinez has become an advocate for gun control since the shooting and said he plans to push lawmakers on the issue while he’s at the Capitol on Tuesday for the president’s speech.

“While in Washington on Tuesday, I’ll continue to urge legislators from both sides of the aisle to support common-sense gun laws — as we have seen statehouses do around the country — that will help save lives,” Martinez said.

The issue of gun violence was prominent during the 2013 State of the Union, which came a month after the shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who has become a gun control advocate after she was shot in an assassination attempt in 2011, was in attendance for the address.