Lawmakers who support the National Rifle Association receive messages from AI-generated voices of gun victims.

On Wednesday, federal lawmakers who are against stricter gun regulations received phone calls in the voice of Joaquin “Guac” Oliver, a victim of the Parkland high school shooting in 2018. Along with the families of five other gun violence victims, they are utilizing artificial intelligence to generate messages in their loved ones’ voices. These messages are then being sent via robocalls to senators and House members who support the National Rifle Association and resist stronger gun laws. The protest is being coordinated through The Shotline website, allowing visitors to choose which offices should receive these calls.

The campaign was launched on Valentine’s Day, marking the six-year anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in which 17-year-old Oliver, 13 other students and three staff members were killed. Oliver was murdered as he lay wounded on the floor, the fatal bullet exploding through his outstretched hand as the 19-year-old killer raised his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle horizontally.

Manuel and Patricia Oliver, Joaquin’s parents, say the campaign is based on the oft-cited idea that if someone wants to change laws, the first step is to call elected representatives. Venezuelan immigrants who became US citizens want to ban the sale of guns like the AR-15.

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“We come from a place where gun violence is a problem, but you never see a 19-year-old with an AR-15 going into a school and shooting people,” Manuel Oliver said. “There is a reason for gun violence in a third world country. There is no reason for gun violence and the number of casualties in the United States.

After Joaquin’s murder, the Olivers founded Change the Ref, which co-sponsored a website with the March for Our Lives group created by Stoneman Douglas students. Both recruited young people through non-traditional protests such as AI calls and “die-ins” where students protested at a supermarket chain that donated to a pro-NRA politician.

“When you continue with tradition … listening over and over again to the same people lecturing you with the same statistics, nothing changes,” Patricia Oliver said.

For the recordings, the Olivers and other families gave the AI company their soundtracks and it recreated their voices, changing tone and pattern based on relatives’ suggestions.

Joaquin’s AI voice recognizes him and then says, “Many students and teachers were murdered on Valentine’s Day…the person who used the AR-15, but you don’t care. You never did. It’s been six years and you haven’t done anything.”

It continues: “I died that day in Parkland. My body was destroyed by a weapon of war. I’m back today because my parents recreated my voice with AI to call you. Other victims like me are also calling again and again demanding action. How many calls do you have to take care of? How how many dead voices do you hear before you finally listen?”

The NRA did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.

In 2020, Olivers used AI to create a video in which Joaquin urged young voters to choose candidates who support stricter gun laws. Critics accused them of politicizing his death to prevent their rights as law-abiding gun owners.

“They are putting words into a dead child’s mouth. If my dad did this to me I would haunt him for the rest of my life,” one wrote on YouTube.

The Olivers balk at the suggestion that they don’t know what Joaquin would say.

“I know exactly what my son was thinking,” Manual Oliver said. “Joaquin took enough time to write down his thoughts, principles, ideas, lifestyle, dreams and goals. Everything can be found on social media.”

Others involved in the new campaign include the family of 23-year-old Akilah Dasilva, one of four people killed in the 2018 shooting at a Waffle House restaurant in Tennessee, and 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, who died in the 2022 massacre. At Uvalden Elementary in Texas. Also included are the parents of 15-year-old Ethan Song, who died in an accidental shooting, and the 20-year-old murder victim and the family of the man who committed suicide.

Uziyah’s uncle, Brett Cross, said the boy wanted to help people as a police officer. In the AI message, Uziyah’s voice says, “I’m a 4th grader at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Or at least I was when a man with an AR-15 came into my school and killed 18 of my classmates, two teachers and me.” Then his voice tells the lawmakers, “What do you need to help make sure the violence is stopped like this?”

Cross said her family is participating “so no other kid has to go through what Uzi did.” No other parent should have to go through what we have.”

Song shot himself in 2018 at his best friend’s house in Connecticut while the two of them were playing with a handgun, one of several firearms that the other boy’s father had not locked up. Mike and Kristin Song created a message for their son’s voice calling for a federal law that would make it a crime to not properly store guns in homes with children.

“You would think that stacking the coffins of dead children would be enough to create a culture change in this country, but unfortunately our message really falls on deaf ears,” Kristin Song said.

Other families who lost loved ones to gun violence will be allowed to add their victims to the recreated voice project, which will continue until further notice.

The Olivers are not alone among the Stoneman Douglas families in their public advocacy since the massacre, and positions have been taken on both sides of the gun debate.

But while many others focus primarily on protests, social media posts and lobbying — and have had some success — the Olivers, especially Manuel, get in the face of opponents and challenge allies to be brazen. They call themselves “the rebel side of the gun violence prevention movement.”

Manuel Oliver’s protest speeches are often full of obscenities. He was arrested in 2022 after climbing a construction crane near the White House and unfurling a banner calling on President Joe Biden to enact stricter gun laws. Months later, he was kicked out of a White House event for yelling at the president.

As an artist, he painted an anti-gun mural across the street from the NRA’s Virginia headquarters as gun-walking counter-protesters looked on. He tours the country in a one-man play about his son and his murder, and his performances punch holes in a life-size portrait of Joaquin, each one representing the bullets that hit him.

“We have nothing to lose here – we’ve already lost everything,” Manuel Oliver said. “For me (the protest) is normal. The only thing that is not normal is that we allow our society to let people die.”