Category: Action Alert

On Monday, January 15, 2018, gun violence survivors and GVP advocates will gather at the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia to conduct the 26th annual Vigil and Advocacy Day of the Virginia Center for Public Safety and Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. During the day, participants will acknowledge the nonviolent teachings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., remember lost loved ones, and lobby their states delegates and senators for tougher gun laws.

It’s a big event. Each MLK Day, radical pro-gun advocates with the Virginia Citizens Defense League also rally their forces at the State Capitol. In decades past, pro-gun attendees would outnumber GVP advocates significantly. That has changed abruptly in the last couple of years, with GVP groups including  gathering crowds of 600-700 to participate in MLK day activities and pro-gun organizers straining to reach half that number.

That grassroots push is reflected in the changing composition of the Virginia government. GVP won big in the November 2017 elections in Virginia, with Ralph Northam prevailing in the governor’s race and Chris Hurst, whose fiancee Alison Parker was shot and killed on live television, winning a delegate’s seat. Many ardently pro-NRA legislators lost their seats. Virginia is an exciting Purple state that continues to trend progressive, and that is in no small part because of the work of GVP advocates.

The schedule for the 2018 Vigil and Advocacy Day is as follows:

2PM: Vigil to remember victims of gun violence at the Bell Tower on State Capitol grounds in Richmond. Intersection of 9th and Franklin. Governor-Elect Ralph Northam will be the featured speaker at the vigil.

3PM-5PM: Move inside General Assembly building to speak with Virginia delegates and senators about doing a better job of reducing gun violence in the state.

Please take one of the following two actions:

1) If you live in the Virginia area, and are able to attend the event, please RSVP to Kayla Hicks at khicks@efsgv.org or (757) 550-0316.

2) If you can’t make it, please share the following link with your family and friends from Virginia on Facebook and encourage them to attend:

https://www.facebook.com/events/319590418540062/

After taking one or more of the actions, click the orange banner below to report doing so!

Update:  During the second round of public comments on the proposed bump stock ban, supporters outnumbered opponents by three to one! On December 26, 2018, the Department of Justice published a final rule banning bump stocks. Owners were given 90 days to turn them into an ATF field office or destroy them. Thank you to everyone who submitted a comment(s) and helped this ban get enacted!

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The day after Christmas, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives published an advanced notice of a proposed rule concerning bump stocks. This proposal follows the horrific October mass shooting in Las Vegas in which a gunman used bump stocks to simulate full automatic gunfire. He inflicted 600 casualties in just 10 minutes.

The rule being proposed by the ATF would classify bump stocks as machine guns under federal law. That means citizens would be unable to legally obtain bump stocks without going through a thorough licensing and registration process.

ATF is soliciting comments from the member of the public as part of their rule-making process. Specifically, the ATF has invited comments “on the costs or benefits of the proposal, and on the appropriate methodology and data for calculating those costs and benefits.”

Please take one or more of the following actions:

1) Click the following link and submit a comment to the ATF:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/12/26/2017-27898/application-of-the-definition-of-machinegun-to-bump-fire-stocks-and-other-similar-devices

Click the green SUBMIT A FORMAL COMMENT button at the top right of the webpage to submit your comment via webform. [Note: Not all fields in the webform are required.]

You can use the following message as a template for your comment:

First, let me thank you for taking on the task of regulating bump stocks, which have no legitimate place in civilian commerce. This issue was the responsibility of the U.S. Congress to fix. I am sorry it has landed on the shoulders of your agency. But now that it has, it is critical to get it right. I think the cost of unregulated bump stocks (and other devices which allow semiautomatic firearms to simulate full automatic fire) will be more shootings like Las Vegas, in which single gunmen inflict massive numbers of casualties. We cannot allow that morally, or as a democracy. Please draft and finalize a rule that tightly regulates civilian ownership and purchase of bump stocks and similar devices that simulate full automatic fire (i.e., trigger cranks, Auto Glove, etc.). This should include, at a minimum, a licensing and registration process like the one we have for machine guns. For too long, the financial needs of the gun industry have trumped public safety. Let’s change that. If you do the right thing here, I will have the ATF’s back.

2) Share the comment link above on your social media feeds and encourage others to submit a comment.

Please note that comments MUST be submitted by January 25, 2018 or they will not be accepted!

Click on the orange banner below to report taking action once you have submitted your comment!

Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, has written a terrific op-ed in The Hill on the subject of the NRA’s “National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.”

This dangerous legislation, H.R. 38, would force states to allow individuals from other states to carry concealed guns on their streets. This includes individuals from both “Shall-Issue” states as well as the 12 states that require no permit at all to carry concealed. Furthermore, H.R. 38 makes verification of permits from 49 other states impossible for law enforcement.

Webster makes a persuasive argument as to why the expansion of permissive concealed carry regimens would be a disaster for public safety.

He shares new polling data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research that shows Americans support stronger safety standards for concealed carry by wide margins, regardless of political affiliation or gun ownership.

Webster also highlights new research that links permissive concealed carry laws to high violent crime (and murder) rates.

Please read Daniel Webster’s op-ed  at the following link and then share it on Facebook and/or Twitter:

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/365543-gun-owners-and-republicans-dont-really-want-concealed-carry

After you read the op-ed, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

Last week, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, Dean Winslow, withdrew his name from consideration to be assistant secretary of defense for health affairs after the Senate Armed Services Committee put his nomination on indefinite hold.

The reason for his nomination being tabled? Professor Winslow testified before the committee the day after the horrific shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas (26 killed, 20 injured) and when asked about the tragedy, opined, “I’d also like to . . . just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semiautomatic weapon like an AR-15.”

Winslow was chastised by the chairman of the committee, John McCain, who said the professor had no “area of responsibility or expertise” in speaking on assault weapons.

McCain is wrong. Winslow is a veteran who served as commander of an Air Force hospital in Baghdad during the surge. As he recently wrote in a Washington Post editorial, “I have seen what [assault weapons like the AR-15] do to human beings. The injuries are devastating.”

Please contact Dean Winslow through one of the channels below and send him a message based on the following template:

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you speaking truth about AR-15s and other semiautomatic battlefield rifles that are freely available on the civilian market in the United States. For you to say what you did on camera in front of sitting Senators means the world to me. I am so sorry your appointment for assistant secretary of defense for health affairs was treated in this manner by Senate Armed Services Committee chair John McCain. You deserved better. You are exactly the kind of person we need in that position. I will remember what you did here and look forward to seeing where public service calls you next. Your country needs you.

Dean Winslow
Phone: (650) 723-6661
Email: dwinslow@stanford.edu

After you contact Dean Winslow, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

Update: In a memo to State Attorney Bruce Colton of Florida’s 19th judicial district on June 4, 2018, Assistant State Attorney Steve Gosnell said the decision had been made not to file charges against road rage killer Timothy Sartori after a six-month investigation. Gosnell wrote:

“Stand your ground (law) eliminated a need to retreat when you’re in a place other than your home. There is simply insufficient evidence to overcome the claim of self-defense. Mr. Sartori…could have avoided this tragic encounter had he made an effort to retreat with his vehicle. However…in Florida, the present state of self-defense law does not require him to do so. It is not for this prosecutor to debate the policy, but to enforce the laws as written.”

The One Pulse for America campaign calling for charges against Sartori was featured in an article by the newspaper on December 4, 2017.

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On November 16, 2017, an argument erupted between motorists at a stoplight on State Road 60 in Vero Beach, Florida.

Concealed carry permit holder Timothy Sartori, 29, was the man in the middle of Dennis Hicks, 38, and another motorist embroiled in a road rage confrontation with Hicks. Sartori and Hicks began to argue. Sartori claims Hicks threatened to shoot him and then reached for a gun.   But Sartori was the only one in possession of a  pistol. He emptied an entire magazine from a semiautomatic handgun—10-15 rounds—killing Hicks instantly and hitting a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction on State Road 60 four times. Michael Clemente was driving that vehicle with his 3 year-old son in a car seat in the back.  Somehow, neither father nor son were injured. No gun was found in Hicks’ car. He leaves behind two daughters, 5 and 3.

Timothy Sartori was arrested in 2008 on felony charges of burglary of an unoccupied structure and grand theft auto. He pleaded those charges down to misdemeanors. He has also been cited on multiple occasions for reckless driving. Despite this, he was allowed to walk free after the shooting and has yet to be charged with any crime by Indian River County Assistant State Attorney Steve Gosnell!

Please sign this  powerful petition from the Clemente family calling on Steve Gosnell to charge Timothy Sartori with a crime for unnecessarily killing a man and endangering everyone around him:

https://www.change.org/p/stephen-gosnell-endangerment-charges-in-vero-beach-road-rage-shooting

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

The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Community Justice Reform Coalition, and PICO National Network just released an exciting new report with important recommendations on preventing gun death.

Titled “Investing in Intervention: The Critical Role of State-Level Support in Breaking the Cycle of Urban Gun Violence,” the report looks at violence intervention programs in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York that have helped to dramatically reduce gun homicide rates in those states.

Underlying the programs are three key strategies:

• Group Violence Intervention. A carrot-and-stick approach that involves reaching out to high-risk community members with incentives such as access to social services, education, and job training opportunities, while promising swift action from law enforcement if killings continue.
• The Cure Violence model developed in Chicago, which was the subject of the award-winning documentary “The Interrupters.”
• Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs. We know that a history of violent injury is a strong risk factor for future violence. HVIP programs offer teachable moments to young people hospitalized with gunshot injuries.

These programs are noncontroversial in state legislatures and cost-effective, achieving significant drops in gun homicide rates with minimal investment. There is no reason they should not be modeled in every state.

Please take a look at the “Investing in Intervention” report and share it with one or more of your state legislators along with the following message (feel free to personalize):

As your constituent, I wanted to make sure you saw this new report from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, PICO, and the Community Justice Reform Coalition, titled “Investing in Intervention.” It lays out some really exciting evidence-based strategies to reduce gun homicide rates in urban communities. The programs described in the report have achieved maximum results with minimal investment. They are noncontroversial because they don’t involve firearms regulation. They empower members of the community by relying on them to take the lead. During the upcoming session, I would like you to introduce or co-sponsor a bill that would implement one or more of the violence intervention strategies described in the “Investing in Intervention” report. This is something you can move forward with immediately that would prevent the loss of many lives.

http://lawcenter.giffords.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Investing-in-Intervention-12-18-17.pdf

If you need to find out who your state legislators are, click here:

https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

Once you have shared the report with a state legislator, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

With the Sandy Hook families grieving on the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting that took their loved ones, Donald Trump hosted National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre at the White House Christmas party.

Trump did not say or tweet anything in remembrance of the 20 children and six adults who were killed by a gunman with an AR-15 on December 14, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut.

In response, Nicole Hockley of Sandy Hook Promise, whose son Dylan (6 years old) was killed in the 2012 shooting, penned a statement to Trump, LaPierre and White House press secretary Sara Huckabee Sanders, who told the press corps that no type of firearms regulation could have prevented the Sandy Hook shooting.

Please read Nicole’s statement and then share it on Facebook and/or Twitter:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SandyHookPromise/posts/1512907652160795

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sandyhook/status/942419992829677574

Then Like her Facebook post and leave a  loving comment.

Once you have read Nicole’s statement, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

Six out of every seven people who are shot in America survive.

According to the CDC’s WISQARS tool, in the year 2015, nearly 85,000 Americans were shot but not killed. That’s more than twice the number of fatalities from guns that year (36,252).

We are now seeing shootings in this country that are inflicting massive casualties. The Las Vegas shooter wounded 546 concert-goers. These survivors are quickly forgotten and left to deal with significant injuries and emotional trauma alone. Legislators fail to give them the appropriate voice they should have in debates about gun policy.

There’s an exciting new article in The Atlantic titled “Americans Don’t Really Understand Gun Violence” that talks about this forgotten group of survivors and their lives. It also stresses the paucity of research we have about gun violence even when it comes to basic questions like:

• Who pulled the gun?
• Who, if anyone, was struck?
• What happened to the victim?

It’s a great article to read and share; rich in important information about how we might improve the quality of life of gun violence survivors in this country.

Please read the Atlantic article at the following link and then share it on Facebook (and Twitter if you can):

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/guns-nonfatal-shooting-newtown-las-vegas/548372/

Leave a comment at the article if you can, as well.

Once you have read the article, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

The Alvarado family of southern Utah was devastated by the mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017.

35 year-old Heather Alvarado was killed in the shooting. Her 14 year-old daughter Syrus was there with her and survived. Due to trauma, Syrus is now being homeschooled. Heather’s youngest son with husband Albert Alvarado is also homeschooled due to health reasons (immunodeficiency). Heather ran an in-home daycare/preschool in order to be closer to her son and provide for his care.

Heather had no life insurance. Albert has to return to work as a firefighter not knowing how he will care for their surviving children, who need him right now.

Please take one of the following actions in support of the Alvarado family:

1) Snail mail the Alvarado a card/letter expressing your condolences to the following address:

Cedar City Firehouse
Attn: Albert Alvarado
291 N 800 W
Cedar City, UT 84721

2) If you can, make a contribution to help the Alvarado family:

https://www.gofundme.com/lasvegasvictimheatheralvarado

Once you have completed (1) or (2), click the orange banner below to report taking action!