Category: Action Alert

On February 6, 2018, Kentucky state House Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Fischer (R-Fort Thomas) told the Lexington Herald Leader that his committee has yet to act on a bill  that would make it a crime to leave loaded firearms unsecured around children, HB 31. because he “just don’t know anything about it.” Despite the fact that Kentucky’s legislative session began on January 2, Rep. Fischer told a reporter he has not even read the bill.

The Herald Leader conducted an investigation and found that:

“From 2012 through June 2017 at least 36 Kentucky children accidentally shot themselves or another child. Those are just the shootings the [newspaper] can confirm using public records.  No government agency keeps numbers. 15 children died in those shootings. 21 children suffered injuries, some leading to permanent disabilities, such as brain damage. Most of the time, criminal charges were not filed against the people who failed to keep their loaded guns away from children.”

And yet Rep. Fischer can’t be bothered to read a Child Access Prevention bill that could prevent much of this suffering.

Please take a minute to contact Rep. Fischer through one of the channels below and give him the following message:

I was disturbed to read your comments to the Lexington Herald Leader about HB 31, a bill that would make it a misdemeanor crime for adults to leave loaded, unsecured guns around children. As the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, it is your JOB to read legislation under the committee’s purview and act on bills that are urgent in nature. Nothing is more urgent than preventing unnecessary gun deaths involving children. According to the Herald Leader, at least 36 Kentucky children shot themselves or another child with an unsecured firearm between 2012 and 2017. That is unacceptable, and it continues to happen because negligent adults face no criminal penalties for putting minors at risk in this manner. You can help change that, if you value kids’ lives over gun lobby largesse. I call on you to mark up HB 31 immediately, and get House Judiciary Committee members on the record in a vote to report the bill out to the full House.  I will be watching your actions closely.

Rep. Joe Fischer
Phone: (513) 794-6442
Email: Joe.Fischer@lrc.ky.gov
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KYHouseGOP

Once you’ve contacted the representative, click the orange banner above to report taking action!

Update: Gun violence survivor Lucy McBath triumphed by a narrow margin in her congressional race against Republican Karen Handel and was seated in the House of Representatives in January 2019! 

Lucy McBath became a prominent gun violence prevention activist following the 2012 murder of her teenage son Jordan Davis in Jacksonville. Jordan was shot and killed by 47 year-old Michael Dunn in a gas station parking lot. Dunn pulled the trigger (repeatedly) because Davis and other young African-Americans were in a vehicle beside him playing loud music. Thankfully, even under Florida’s outrageously permissive “Stand Your Ground” law, jurors convicted Dunn of first-degree murder, putting him in prison for life.

In January 2018, Lucy announced a run for a seat in the Georgia state House of Representatives. Two months later she changed her mind, announcing she would instead run for Congress as a Democrat in Georgia’s 6th congressional district.

Lucy won the Democratic primary on July 24 and will face Republican incumbent Karen Handel in the general election in November. The NRA endorsed Handel and gave her an ‘A’ rating for opposing all sensible attempts at gun reform while further weakening America’s gossamer gun laws.

Lucy thinks we can do far better. “I am still his mother,” McBath said of Jordan in a campaign video. “I still continue to mother him by making sure I preserve the lives of other children like him. We thought maybe he would be a community activist. What I thought I saw in him is what I’ve become. I can speak truth in Washington.”

Please take one or more of the following actions to support GVP champion Lucy McBath in her run for Congress:

1) Sign up to remotely phone bank for Lucy during a three-hour time block of your choice (many are available). You can also volunteer to lead your own phone bank if you’d like:

https://secure.ngpvan.com/e2Ctq-9Kwk2SJXhx1ilC0g2

2) If you have the means to do so, donate to Lucy’s campaign at:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/support-lucy

3) Share Lucy’s wonderful campaign video telling Jordan’s story on Facebook and/or Twitter:

FB: https://www.facebook.com/lucywins2018/videos/257074234948787/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucyWins2018/status/1039930734352494592

Once you have taken one or more of the above actions, fill out the three fields below and click the orange banner to report taking action! 

[This action alert has been updated several times since it was originally posted on February 7, 2018.]

Update: Matthew Guska was indicted on two counts of felonious assault on  December 7, 2018 for hitting a 157 Lounge patron in the head with a flashlight and injuring him. On May 21, 2019, Guska pleaded guilty to a reduced first-degree misdemeanor charge of assault.  He was placed on probation with no jail time and must pay restitution to the victim, who Guska is barred from contacting.

From January-April 2013, Sarah Andrews worked at the popular bar 157 Lounge while getting her undergraduate degree at nearby Kent State (Ohio).

Four and a half years later,  Sarah posted on Facebook about her experience working at the bar “to bring attention to a pattern of abusive and threatening behavior towards young students on a college campus.” Sarah identified the perpetrator as the racist and sexually abusive co-owner of 157 Lounge, Matthew Guska. She noted that Guska harassed employees and customers alike (an allegation that is supported by multiple witnesses).

In response, Guska filmed a video of him firing a handgun at a blown-up photo of Sarah’s face. Guska then posted the video online. After Sarah successfully took out out a civil protective order against him, Guska sued her for causing him “emotional distress” with her Facebook post!

A man who threatened to shoot Sarah Andrews is now trying to purposely bankrupt her through the legal system.

Please take the following action to support Sarah:

1) Write a letter to the editor to the Record-Courier or KentWired (Kent State student news) in support of Sarah. Below is a template that you can personalize to your liking (please note that newspapers will not accept letters unless they are original and sent solely to that one paper):

It’s so sad to see the legal system treating Sarah Andrews as the perpetrator and Matthew Guska as a victim. Andrews had every right to speak her mind about the harassment and abuse she witnessed from the co-owner of 157 Lounge when she worked there in 2013.  Her intent was to protect other young women from being subject to trauma inflicted by this man. Now Guska is suing Andrews for “emotional distress” after posting a video online of him shooting a target of her face! His intent is to bankrupt her, to revictimize her, essentially. Here’s an idea. Rather than facilitating lawsuits by abusers, maybe our criminal justice system should be looking into the allegations against Guska—before he hurts someone else.

Email your letter to the Record-Courier to:

editor@recordpub.com

Submit your letter to KentWired via this online form:

https://www.kentwired.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/

Once you have submitted a letter, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has a terrific product that we highly recommend to all of you are who are engaged in doing state-level work on gun laws.

The GunLawTrendWatch newsletter tracks and analyzes firearms legislation in all 50 states. As its editors note:  “We research nearly 1,700 bills each year—many of which are modeled off policies crafted by our legal experts—and identify trends that help inform the [gun violence prevention] movement’s advocacy efforts.”

In the current 2018 newsletter you will find the following:

• Actions state legislators have taken in response to the gun violence tragedies of 2017.
• The status of Extreme Risk Protection Order legislation in the states.
• A spotlight on legislation supporting evidence-based urban gun violence reduction programs.

Click the link below to read the two-page 2018 GunLawTrendWatch newsletter. It’s a great way to get a sense of where gun-related legislation stands:

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Trendwatch-02.01.18.pdf

Bookmark the link, too, so you can read future issues. To read past issues of GunLawTrendWatch, go here:

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/resources/trends/#trendwatch-2017-past-issues-archive

Once you read the 2018 newsletter, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

The Center for American Progress has released a terrific new online report called “Beyond Our Borders.”

The report looks at how weak American gun laws impact violent crime in countries in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Typically we think of this problem in terms of U.S. gun trafficking to Mexico, but it’s far bigger than that, extending north into Canada and south to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The United States also supplies the majority of crime guns recovered in Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean islands.

Click the link below and read the “Introduction and Summary” to the report to get credit for taking this action. (To be awesome, keep reading.)

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/reports/2018/02/02/445659/beyond-our-borders/

Once you complete the reading, click the orange banner at the top of this page to report taking action!

It’s important to recognize that U.S. legislators’ lack of action on gun reform has consequences for people across the entire region. There are so many lives we should be saving.

GVPedia is a terrific new website that gives users access to a comprehensive collection of peer-reviewed studies on gun violence. The creator of GVPedia, Devin Hughes, is also authoring “White Papers” on different topics to bring together some of this research in a more accessible way.

The latest white paper is “Defensive Gun Uses.”

As you may know, pro-gun activists frequently overstate the number of times American gun owners use their weapons in legitimate acts of self-defense. The GVPedia white paper, which is just a single page, has all the nitty-gritty information you will need to refute such claims—whether you’re chatting with someone online or face-to-face with a legislator.

Please read the white paper on DGUs  at the following link and then share it on Facebook and/or Twitter:

http://www.gvpedia.org/white-paper-frequency-defensive-gun-use/

Once you have read the white paper, click the orange banner at the top of this page to report your action!

Thanks for doing the best you can to stay educated on the gun issue. As Devin likes to say, now you’re “armed with reason”!

Update: In response to our contacts, the “WM1 Project Prom 2018” Facebook page has been pulled down by its administrator(s). The post shown below came from the page.

The day after a 15 year-old student at Marshall County High School (Kentucky) shot and killed two students and wounded 18 others, a K-12 school in Wellsville, Missouri decided to raffle off an AR-15 assault rifle to support an “After Prom event.”

Wellsville-Middletown R-1 describes their raffle as follows:

Project Prom next fundraiser is VERY COOL….we are going to be selling raffle tickets for a Olive Green, Del-Ton Sierra AR-15! Tickets will be $10 each and we decided to only sell 500 total tickets! They will go quick so please see your Junior and Senior class students or let us know how many you want!

The weapon is a Del-Ton Sierra 316 AR-15 semiautomatic rifle chambered in the 5.56 NATO round. The rifle comes with a 30-round magazine and a flash suppressor (used to disguise a shooter at night).

Please contact Wellsville-Middletown R-1 Superintendent Pete Nasir through one of the channels below and share the following message with him, personalized to your liking:

I was so upset to see Wellsville Middletown R-1 promoting the raffle of a semiautomatic battlefield rifle with a 30-round magazine just 24 hours after 20 casualties were inflicted on high school students in Kentucky. I have no problems with people owning firearms to hunt, or for self-defense in the home. But this looks more like bald-faced idolatry. Please understand that in most cases in school shootings, the shooter is a student of the school himself! I hope you will rethink this raffle. What message are you sending to your students? Are you preparing them for war?

Superintendent Pete Nasir
Phone: (573) 684-2428
Email: nasir@wmr1.k12.mo.us

Once you’ve contacted Pete Nasir, click the orange banner above to report taking action!

Thank you for standing up for the welfare of students in the state of Missouri.

[h/t to Alexa Tomassi of Sandy Hook Promise for the tip on this.]

A disturbing incident occurred on January 25, 2018 when armed Trump supporters confronted three Arizona state representatives near the state Capitol in Phoenix.

The armed Trump supporters surrounded Rep. Pamela Hannley (D-Tucson) and yelled at her about “protecting illegals.”  Reps. Eric Descheenie (D-Chinle) and Representative Wenona Benally (D-Window Rock)—who are Native American—were on their way to lunch and observed what was happening. Rep. Descheenie stepped in between the Trump protesters and Rep. Hannley. When he did, the protesters focused their ire on Reps. Descheenie and Benally, aggressively telling them to “get out of the country.”

One of the protesters dropped a loaded gun inside the State Capitol building. According to State Democratic Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, the protesters harassed legislative staffers “perceived not to be white.” They can be seen harassing legislators and Latino schoolchildren on camera here.

Please take a minute to contact these 3 legislators through one of the channels below and give them the following message (personalized to your liking):

I am so sorry you were subject to abuse and cheap intimidation by armed supporters of Donald Trump on January 25th. I am just disgusted at the way you were treated by these individuals and left unprotected by Capitol police. NO ONE with a gun should be able to engage in that type of aggressive manner with a legislator under ANY circumstances. I appreciate your bravery under the circumstances and the example you set by showing respect for our democratic institutions. I have your back 100% against these thugs.

Rep. Pamela Hannley
Phone: (602) 926-4848
Email: PPowersHannley@azleg.gov
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.j.powers/videos/10159887118280150/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/p2hannley

Rep. Eric Descheenie
Email: EDescheenie@azleg.gov
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericdescheenie

Rep. Wenona Benally
Phone: (602) 926-5172
Email: WBenally@azleg.gov
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wenona4arizona/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wenona4Arizona/status/958203022995202048

Once you’ve contacted the representatives, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

Update: The CREDO poll now has more than 89,000 signatures. On May 16, 2018, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report titled, “Preliminary Findings About Trump Campaign’s Effort to Obtain Incriminating Information on Secretary Clinton from Russia at Trump Tower Meeting.” It stated:

“The Committee has obtained a number of documents that suggest the Kremlin used the National Rifle Association as a means of accessing and assisting Mr. Trump and his campaign. Two individuals involved in this effort appear to be Russian nationals Alexander Torshin and Maria Butina. Mr. Torshin is a Putin ally and the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, and Ms. Butina served as his assistant. She also founded Right to Bear Arms, the Russian equivalent of the NRA, and started a business with former Trump supporter and adviser Paul Erickson. Both Mr. Torshin and Ms. Butina have longstanding ties to ex-NRA president, David Keene, and in 2013, hosted him in Russia for a pro-gun conference. During the campaign, Mr. Torshin, Ms. Butina, and their intermediaries repeatedly offered the campaign back channels to Russia and relayed requests from President Putin to meet with Mr. Trump. The Kremlin may also have used the NRA to secretly fund Mr. Trump’s campaign. The extent of Russia’s use of the NRA as an avenue for connecting with and potentially supporting the Trump campaign needs examination.”

Credo just launched a petition calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to “conduct a full investigation into the allegations that the NRA helped funnel Russian money into the 2016 U.S. elections.”

Earlier this month, McClatchy broke the story that the NRA is under investigation by the FBI. The FBI is investigating whether Russian Central Bank head Alexander Torshin illegally funneled money to the NRA to help elect Donald Trump president.

The NRA’s relationship with the government of Vladimir Putin dates back to at least 2011 when Torshin was introduced to then-NRA president David Keene. Since that time, Torshin has attended 4 NRA meetings in the U.S. And NRA leaders have made reciprocal trips to Moscow to meet with Torshin and other Putin lieutenants.

In 2016, the NRA spent record money—more than $70 million according to some sources. It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections in the United States.

Please sign Credo’s petition and tell the Senate to investigate NRA collusion with the government of Vladimir Putin:

https://act.credoaction.com/sign/NRA_Russia

Share the petition link, too. If you get additional people to sign the petition, you can report those actions here (you will have to wait 24 hours to report each new action).

Once you’ve signed the petition, click the orange banner below to report taking action!