Gun rights and human rights <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nFortunately for them, it wasn\u2019t the last time.<\/p>\n
Hours later, when they made it back to their hotel on Fremont Street, they couldn\u2019t sleep. They didn\u2019t want to be in Vegas anymore. They wanted to be with family. They rented a car (an electric blue Hyundai Elantra) and drove 19 hours straight to Green\u2019s parents\u2019 house in Bellingham, Washington.<\/p>\n
They flew home Tuesday to be with their son, and Braeden\u2019s question about whether a disaster could happen at a concert they were at came back to Rehfield-Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I can honestly tell him, \u2018No, that\u2019s not gonna happen\u2019 from now on,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if I can go to another large event like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
What she does know is that she\u2019s not going to feel safe in heavily populated places for a long time.<\/p>\n
During the 45 minutes that they spoke Wednesday morning about the harrowing experience, the emotions were clear and raw on their faces. It was difficult for them to recount the events, but Rehfield-Green said they wanted to get their story out to as many people as they could, because as she said, \u201cwe are the face of gun violence in America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though she and her husband are gun owners and enjoy hunting and fishing, Rehfield-Green says it\u2019s time to change the way guns are regulated. She\u2019s seen arguments arise on Facebook, and though she appreciates both sides of the argument, Rehfield-Green wanted to make it clear that tragedies like this touch real people, not just statistics you see on the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s more important: being able to have an automatic rifle, or being able to have your neighbor alive or your sister alive or your teacher?\u201d Rehfield-Green said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t compute in my mind why gun rights are more important than human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
A reminder and tribute<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nWhen they were in the MGM Grand, all they could think about was their family and their son in Juneau. Now that they\u2019re back in Juneau, Rehfield-Green says her thoughts keep returning to the MGM Grand.<\/p>\n
After FaceTiming with Braeden, the two of them remained at the MGM Grand for a while as other concert-goers congregated. Clad in their purple general admission wristbands, the attendees had become a community of sorts.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about all these people you were mingling with for three days straight,\u201d Rehfield-Green said. \u201cDid the lady with the funky moves we were laughing at survive? Did that couple that two-stepped the whole entire concert every day make it?\u201d<\/p>\n
One man, Bob, was visibly shaken as he told people at the MGM Grand that everybody he was at the concert with was unaccounted for. As they gathered around a television to watch the news later, Bob started yelling.<\/p>\n
The woman being interviewed on the news was one of the people he\u2019d been at the concert with. Though they had only known Bob for a few minutes, Green and Rehfield-Green were overcome with relief that his friend was alive.<\/p>\n
As they sat at their table in Juneau on Wednesday morning, both Green and Rehfield-Green still wore their purple wristbands. They\u2019re not ready to take them off quite yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost doing the people that passed away an injustice to take them off,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n
A few inches above Rehfield-Green\u2019s wristband is a scratch she sustained during the ordeal. The wound will heal soon, but they know that Sunday night will stick with them forever. The wristbands serve as a reminder.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how long I\u2019ll keep it on,\u201d Rehfield-Green said, taking a deep breath. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hiding in an abandoned area in the MGM Grand Las Vegas late Sunday night, Hilary Rehfield-Green and her husband Ryan Green faced an impossible question. If you never get to talk to your kid again, would you rather spare them the worry of what you\u2019re going through or would you want to see their face […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":27757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27756"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}