VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Gun Control Activist Fred Guttenberg Vows To ‘Dismantle’ The NRA

Fred Guttenberg, a gun control activist whose daughter was a victim of the Parkland mass shooting, discussed the new documentary The Price of Freedom, which is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, in his new uInterview.

“My daughter was destined to do amazing things, beyond just being beautiful and a beautiful dancer, she was good. She was a good person. She knew right from wrong,” Guttenberg, remembering his 14-year-old daughter Jamie, told uInterview’s Erik Meers. “She was a kid who if she saw someone being bullied, and my daughter was a petite little thing, would put herself in the middle of it and make the bully stop. She just had that tough gene and that gene that taught her right from wrong and gun violence stole it from us.”

Guttenberg said that for the first 24 hours following the shooting he did not connect the death of his daughter to gun violence. “Everything was a pile of mush,” he said until he spoke at the Parkland candlelight vigil.

“I looked out and I see this crowd of thousands of people. And they’re all holding candles. And everybody’s crying. And within that crowd is a lot of these kids,” he said. “And for the first time in 24 hours it hit me what happened to my family. For the first time in 24 hours my world slowed down, and I had clarity, and I just started talking to this crowd and I recall saying, for the first time, this was gun violence.”

The Price of Freedom dissects the role of the National Rifle Association in American politics and society throughout history. In the documentary, Guttenberg says that the NRA views the deaths of children at the hands of guns as “the cost of doing business.”

“Every dead child and dead adult is the cost of doing business for them because every time they use it as an opportunity to sell more guns,” Guttenberg said.

In January, the NRA filed for bankruptcy protection and sought to reorganize in Texas after the New York attorney general sued the organization, claiming it was “fraught with fraud and abuse.” In March, a Texas judge dismissed the NRAs bid to file for bankruptcy, saying that it was created to gain an “unfair litigation advantage” against the New York AG.

“They are in financial trouble,” Guttenberg said. “They are weakened there’s no question about it, but they still exist and if there’s one thing that the movie makes clear, as long as they exist — they’re like a snake, you know, they always have this ability to resurrect — we need to finish them off. We can’t lay off. We can’t let off. We need to make sure they are dismantled.”

“They make a living off of dead people and we need to get them out of our lives,” he said.

The Price of Freedom will be released in theaters on July 7. Check here for further details.