Category: Action Alert

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.

---

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!

Update: One Pulse for America member (and District 61B resident) Heidi Brenegan had her letter about Sara Freeman published in the North-Star Tribune on December 15, 2017.  Two weeks later, on December 29, 2017, One Pulse for America member Rachael Joseph had her letter about Sara published in the Southwest Journal. Rachael, a survivor of gun violence herself, is managing Sara’s campaign for the Minnesota House.

---

There is an exciting candidate competing for the Democratic endorsement in Minnesota’s District 61B in Minneapolis. The candidate’s name is Sara Freeman and she is running for Minnesota state House of Representatives.

Sara is a survivor of rape and gun-related violence who promises to stress the issue of domestic violence as a representative. She has a very forward-looking gun policy that prioritizes universal background checks, disarming domestic abusers, and preventing suicide.

It’s important for states to enact good gun laws because the baseline of federal gun laws is so weak in the United States. When we have a candidate capable of really leading on the issue, that person is worth supporting.

Please click one of the links below to email a letter to the editor to a Minnesota newspaper in support of Sara.  A personalized letter is best; talk about how gun violence has impacted you, too! You can use the following text (132 words) as a basic template for your own letter (250 words max):

For me, gun violence prevention is a priority issue and I’m so happy to see Sara Freeman running for the Minnesota House in District 61B. Sara is an incredible woman—a gun violence survivor and the chair of the Domestic Abuse Project. She has done incredible work with young people in Minneapolis. I love her forward-thinking gun policy platform. Sara supports universal background checks on all gun sales, gun violence prevention orders to prevent suicides, and the closing of the “Boyfriend Loophole” that arms domestic abusers. She has said that we need more survivors at the State Capitol, and I agree. Let’s send Sara there in November.

Minnesota North Star-Tribune
Email your letter through this webform:
http://www.startribune.com/submit-a-letter-or-commentary/115289839/

Southwest Journal
Email your letter to Dylan Thomas at dthomas@swjournal.com

Pioneer Press
Email your letter to letters@pioneerpress.com

Don’t send your letter to multiple newspapers! Just pick one and send it there. Newspapers won’t publish a letter if they think it has been sent to someone else.

Once you have sent your letter, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

Update: Ryland has recovered from his injuries and was released from University Hospital on January 11, 2018. Per his request, he got to ride home in a bright red fire truck from the Wilson County Fire Department. Thank you to everyone who sent Ryland a card during his hospital stay!

---

During the terrible mass shooting in Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017, five year-old Ryland Ward was shot five times—twice in the stomach, twice in the leg, and once in the elbow—and survived.  His nine year-old sister, Rianna, also survived, uninjured.

Unfortunately, not all of Ryland’s family made it. His stepmother, JoAnn Ward, and her two daughters, Brooke (5) and Emily (7), were killed in the attack. With Ryland still recovering in the hospital, his family has not had the heart to tell him.

They did ask Ryland what he wanted in this difficult moment, however, and his response was Christmas cards. In particular, he likes receiving pictures of other children and their pets.

Please snail mail a Christmas card (or some other card) to Ryland at the following address:

Ryland Ward
P.O. Box 174
Sutherland Springs, Texas, 78161

Once you have sent Ryland a card, click the orange banner below to report taking action!

Update: The CREDO petition against the “National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act” now has more than 200,000 signatures. The bill never reached the floor for a vote in the U.S. Senate during the 115th Congress.

---

On December 6, 2017, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 38, the “National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act,” by a vote of 231-198 (only six Democrats voted for the bill; 14 Republicans voted against it). This dangerous legislation, which was drafted by the National Rifle Association, would force states with strong gun laws to honor concealed carry permits from states with weak laws. That would allow individuals with a history of violence (e.g., domestic abusers, the dangerous mentally ill, substance abusers, etc.) to carry guns in public in all 50 states.

To add insult to injury, Republicans pushed H.R. 38 through the House on a day when scores of survivors of gun violence from across the country (including survivors of the recent Las Vegas shooting) had traveled to Capitol Hill for a hearing, press conference, and the National Vigil to End Gun Violence at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

The danger presented by H.R. 38 cannot be overstated. It would also allow individuals who are prohibited from getting a concealed carry permit in their home state to visit another state with weaker laws to get a permit. Additionally, it would make it nearly impossible for law enforcement officers to verify concealed carry permits from other states. H.R. 38 would even allow gun-toters to sue police officers for checking their permits!

CREDO has launched a petition aimed at stopping H.R. 38 cold in the Senate. It already has more than 30,000 signatures. We need to build it up so that it has a powerful impact when delivered to Senators.

Please click the following link to sign and share the CREDO petition opposing H.R. 38:

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

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