Mass shooting victim’s mom rips Sanders’s ‘lack of compassion’

The mother of a woman killed in a mass shooting said on Monday that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) lacks sympathy for gun violence victims.

“I continue to be astounded at the lack of compassion Bernie shows to the survivors of gun violence,” Sandy Anglin Phillips tweeted.

{mosads}“Last week we watched the Democratic [presidential] debate and listened as Bernie laughed about gun violence in America,” she said of the contest in Brooklyn.

“As I sat aghast at what I was witnessing, I heard [Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton] say ‘there is nothing funny about gun violence!’ I cheered out loud…between the tears that ran down my cheeks.”

Sanders laughed during last week’s clash with Clinton when she suggested many firearms in New York originated in his home state of Vermont.

“It’s not a laughing matter,” she said.

Phillips on Monday said that the moment ignores the agony of those who have lost loved ones in mass shootings.

“My tears were for each of the thousands of families that live with the pain that gun violence leaves in the wake of bullets that target over 33,000 Americans every year,” she said.

“I cried for my precious daughter,” said Phillips, who lost her daughter Jessica Redfield Ghawi, 24, in the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo. “I cried for the life we once had. I cried for the country we once had.

“And I cried because of the spineless leadership in our current Senate, of which Bernie is part. I cried as Bernie laughed.”

James Eagan Holmes opened fire during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012. The attack killed 12 people and wounded 70 others.

Holmes was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole last year. His defense argued that he suffered from mental illness and deserve a life sentence rather than the death penalty.

Clinton has attacked Sanders over gun control and has made the issue a prominent one in her campaign as Sanders edges closer to her in New York, where voters go to the polls on Tuesday, and nationally.