4/7/13 – 18th Annual Luncheon featuring Julie Leftwich

4/7/13 – 18th Annual Luncheon featuring Julie Leftwich

On Sunday, April 7th, CAGV will present its special guest speaker Julie Leftwich for its 18th Anniversary Celebration. Ms. Leftwich, Legal Director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence...

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Data source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER online database. Underlying cause of death used to select firearm deaths. Rates were calculated using census population estimates adjusted to the 2000 and 2010 US population.

California’s Gun Laws Are Saving Lives!

California has the strongest gun laws in the nation and they have made a difference. Between 1990 and 2010, California reduced its firearm mortality rate by 52 percent — a...

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Forum panelist Marisa Martinez flanked by Adrienne and Drake of Santa Barbara Middle
School Teen Press. photo ©Laura Lynch

High Costs of Gun Violence

It cannot have been the intent of James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in his writing of the Second Amendment to award supremacy only to its vociferous advocates,...

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President Obama’s Recommendations to Curb Gun Violence

President Obama’s Recommendations to Curb Gun Violence

You can see the full proposal here....

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We Can Agree

No other country in the Western world has the level of violence attributable to firearms. America’s culture of violence provides a crucible for permissible murderous acts. Let us not play politics with death and sorrow. Let us consider conflict resolution and what all sides can agree upon.

WE CAN AGREE ON THESE FACTS:

Gun deaths in America average 86 each day, and 30,000 each year – too many. 

Guns are here to stay. No one’s going to take your gun away – it’s a fear tactic used by the gun lobby. Gun control advocates and organizations don’t talk about banning all guns. They talk about REASONABLE GUN POLICIES and work closely with law enforcement.

America has a culture of violence. Media violence does have an effect on people and children. Why did the killer in Aurora wear a Joker costume? Life imitates art.

Mentally unstable people are a long way from receiving adequate care and therapy, and as a consequence many are jailed or become homeless, resulting in millions of suffering people who are living on the edge. States do not share information regarding persons who have had a history of hospitalization due to mental illness. A perfect example locally was the Goleta Post Office shooting on January 31, 2006. The shooter got her gun in New Mexico, not California, where we have laws that would have prevented her purchase.

Domestic violence is prevalent. Millions of women are constantly threatened with the use of a gun, some are shot by their partners. Murder/suicide or annihilation killing of a family results in 1000 to 1500 deaths per year, 90% with a firearm.

The new activist interpretation of the Second Amendment whereby the Supreme Court rejected the gun lobby’s mantra: any gun, anywhere, anytime by stating,“The individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense does not prevent the enacting of common-sense gun laws.”

We must agree and demand action on gun violence prevention legislation.

United Physicians for Newtown: “Gun violence is a public health issue.”

February 27, 2013 – Dr. William Begg, an ER physician on duty the day of the Newtown shooting, testified in front of a Senate panel on gun violence stating, “People say that the overall number of assault weapon deaths is small. Please don’t tell that to the people of Tucson or Aurora or Columbine or Virginia Tech, and don’t tell that to the people in Newtown. This is a tipping point, and this is a public health issue.”
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Smart Gun Laws & the Constitution

A few years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court shifted its position on the Second Amendment.

In 2008, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision that redefined the Second Amendment — stating for the first time that it protects a responsible, law-abiding citizen’s right to possess an operable handgun in the home for self-defense. However, the Court also made it clear that the Amendment protects only a limited right and does not protect a “right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner what-soever and for whatever purpose.” Read More »

What do you think about the President’s Proposals?

Dear Friend,

Today, President Obama released the recommendations of Vice President’s Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention delineating specific steps to take to reduce gun violence in our society. The recommendations include a comprehensive approach to preventing and reducing gun violence in America, while protecting the rights of law abiding gun owners.

Some of the Task Force’s recommendations include:

1) Closing background check loopholes to keep guns out of dangerous hands
2) Banning military style assault weapons and high capacity magazines to reduce gun violence
3) Making schools safer and giving local communities the opportunity to hire up to 1,000 school resource officers and mental health personnel
4) Improving mental health services to make sure students and young adults get treatment for mental health issues and ensure coverage of mental health treatment

For the most part, many of these proposals are not new. For example, California already requires universal background checks and bans high capacity magazines and assault rifles. According to a recent report in the Sacramento Bee, while sales of guns have increased in California, incidents of injury and deaths from gun violence have simultaneously decreased.

I’d like to hear what you think of the Task Force Recommendations.

Please let me know by answering a few survey questions, which are available here.

Also, please feel free to forward this email to family and friends who would be interested in weighing in on the debate about how we can reduce gun violence.

As always, please keep in touch with me through my website, by liking my Facebook page, following me on Twitter, or sending me an email.

Sincerely,

Lois Capps
MEMBER OF CONGRESS

A Letter from Senator Hanna-Beth Jackson

A Letter from Senator Hanna-Beth Jackson

Take Action Now!

SIGN – Sign the letter and join 32 victims, survivors, and families of gun tragedies by adding your voice to the national conversation about gun violence. (http://wearebetterthanthis.org/)

CALL – Urge your U.S. Representative to take action to reduce gun deaths and injuries in our country. (http://www.bradynetwork.org/site/PageServer?pagename=BCPlookup)

Call the White House hotline to thank President Obama for voicing his support for reforms to our nation’s gun laws. Call (202) 456-1111.

Call your Members of Congress on the U.S. Capitol hotline at (202) 224-3121

EMAIL – Our President has shown he is willing to lead on this issue. Thank him for supporting meaningful solutions to gun violence. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments)

Grief and Outrage

In our great country, we send those closest to our hearts, our (precious children) to a safe place–our neighborhood schools. But in the land of the free, our hearts are filled with fear because there is no safe place in a country where 300,000,000 firearms are easily accessible. It does not matter whether these weapons are legally owned. What do we know about these gun owners armed with numerous firearms? A legal upstanding gun owner is one argument or one crisis away from violence. Where do the millions of unstable people who live in our communities obtain their firearms? These dangerous killing weapons are in homes, presumably protecting the family from harm.

We are outraged at the massacre of those innocent children at the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school! We don’t want sympathy from elected officials. Thoughts and prayers are NOT ENOUGH.

We demand action! Elected officials are to be held accountable! We are now experiencing mass shootings nearly every week in our country. Every gun control organization, every faith-based organization is calling on the American people to add their voice to insist our elected leaders take action to prevent future tragedies.

President Obama issued a proclamation honoring the victims of the tragedy, ordering U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset on December 18. The president also made a statement on the shooting from the Briefing Room on Friday afternoon.

And in his remarks he said, “And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics. “And I will do everything in my power as President to help.” We must hold him to his words.

Strong and smart gun laws correlate to less gun violence.

The day you read this 32 Americans will die and 4 times that many will suffer debilitating injuries from firearms. And this will happen again tomorrow and the next day, totaling 30,000 Americans killed from gun violence every year. Has this latest killing of 20 young children and 7 adults in a school finally opened our eyes? We hope it has, for how many more must die needlessly.

We the people must demand action from our president and our legislators at all levels. Think: shootings in malls, theaters, schools and in homes—while loaded and unlocked weapons reside in the homes of millions of Americans, easily accessible—there is no safe and quiet community.

Toni Wellen
Chair, Coalition Against Gun Violence
(805) 684-8434
Santa Barbara County

President Obama’s Response

The president has responded to a petition to Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress. see his response here: