Sandy Hook – we are all horrified by the terrible events that occurred that day. A parent’s greatest fear is to
have to bury their child. It goes
against nature.
The details are painful to hear. The children were struck with as many as 11
bullets. All were shot multiple times.
The type of bullet used was optimized to cause the most damage. The rifle used to kill the defenseless victims is capable of
firing up to six bullets per second.
Under the 1994 federal ban on such weapons, buying some
variants of new AR-15s was against the law. The ban expired in 2004.
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| credit Don Wasserman Boston Globe |
The Children’s Defense League has been a leading advocate
for our children. They are a non-profit
child advocacy organization that has worked for nearly 40 years to ensure a
level playing field for all children. They recently released a report gun violence against children.
“The most recent
analysis of data from 23 high-income countries reported that 87 percent of
children under age 15 killed by guns in these nations lived in the United States.
And the U.S. gun homicide rate for teens and young adults 15 to 24 was 42.7
times higher than the combined gun homicide rate for that same age group in the
other countries.” (From the Children’s
Defense League report “Protect Children Not Guns 2012” http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2012.pdf)
The Children's Defense League are great advocates for our kids. You can send a donation online http://www.childrensdefense.org/
Another organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns partnered with
survivors of recent mass shootings -- including Aurora, Tuscon and Virginia
Tech -- and the families of the victims to launch www.DemandAPlan.org.
According to the website “Demand a Plan is a campaign of
Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- a national, bipartisan coalition of mayors
working to make America’s communities safer by keeping illegal guns out of
dangerous hands. Co-founded in 2006 by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, the coalition has grown from a committed group
of 15 members to more than 800 mayors, including Republicans, Democrats, and
Independents, from major cities and small towns around the country. We have
more than half a million grassroots supporters, making us the largest gun
violence prevention advocacy organization in the country.” Online you can sign a petition, share it on social media, tweet the
President, support the campaign and stay connected.
Here are some other organizations you can support.
Woman against Gun Violence - www.wagv.org/
The Brady Center - www.bradycenter.org
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence - www.csgv.org/
One year to the day before he would be killed by a gun, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “We still have a choice today: nonviolent
coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action . If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and
shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion,
might without morality, and strength without sight.”
Let’s remember all the victims from the Tucson shootings, the Aurora Movie
Theater, the Oregon Mall. There are many other murders that don't get the same media coverage. Remember that 260 school children were killed in
Chicago in the last 3 years.
The NRA has 4.3 million members. The U.S. population is 315 million of which 74 million are children. The NRA represents less than 2% of us. Clearly the very small vocal minority has been driving this issue.
It's time for us to speak up and take action.
It's time for us to speak up and take action.
