#moms demand action
This flowchart is a Michigan school’s *simple* solution to determining if someone open carrying a gun inside the school is a good guy or a bad guy.
We’ve got an even simpler solution: don’t allow open carry in schools!
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VICTORY! Today the Montana chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America applauded the House’s rejection of Senate Bill 143, a dangerous bill that would have forced Montana’s public colleges and universities to allow individuals to carry concealed, loaded handguns onto their campuses.
Leading up to the vote in the House, the Montana chapter of Moms Demand Action hosted the first-ever gun safety advocacy day at the Capitol, which brought together a broad coalition of gun safety advocates who spoke out against SB 143. Similar bills that would have forced colleges and universities to allow guns on campus have already been defeated this year in South Dakota, Wyoming, West Virginia and Virginia.
STATEMENT FROM PAMELA OWEN, A VOLUNTEER WITH THE MONTANA CHAPTER OF MOMS DEMAND ACTION:
“Today our leaders in the House stood up for the safety of all of Montana’s students. Montana’s colleges and universities know what’s best when it comes to protecting our students and educators, and now they can keep making critical public safety decisions that best fit their unique campuses. As a parent, sending a child off to college comes with enough safety concerns. Worrying about whether students in our children’s classes are carrying guns shouldn’t be one of those concerns. We applaud our elected officials in the House for standing on the side of public safety and rejecting this dangerous piece of legislation.”
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The motivations for suicide are hard to predict, but often it’s only a matter of minutes between the first suicidal thought and the attempt itself.
Suicide is often a convergence of factors leading to a sudden, tragic event. In one study of people who survived a suicide attempt, almost half reported that the whole process, from the first suicidal thought to the final act, took 10 minutes or less …
“What people experience before attempting suicide is a combination of panic, agitation and franticness,” he said. “A desire to escape from unbearable pain and feeling trapped.”
Sometimes,depression isn’t even in the picture. In one study, 60 percent of college students who said they were thinking about ways to kill themselves tested negative for depression.
“There are kids for whom it’s very difficult to predict suicide — there doesn’t seem to be that much that is wrong with them,” said Dr. David Brent, an adolescent psychiatrist who studies suicide at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Brent’s research showed that 40 percent of children younger than 16 who died by suicide did not have a clearly definable psychiatric disorder.
What they did have was a loaded gun in the home.
“If the kids are under 16, the availability of a gun is more important than psychiatric disorder,” Dr. Brent said. “They’re not suicidal one minute, then they are. Or they’re mad and they have a gun available.”
The NRA has a lot to learn from our founding fathers when it comes to guns on university campuses.
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you know our country has a huge problem with gun violence – and the media’s ability to cover it.
This video says it all: Emergency calls reveal how disturbed many people are when they actually encounter open carry gun extremists.
Shocking numbers from Yale School of Medicine: http://medicine.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6625
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Yale School of Medicine: "About 20 children per day in the United States are injured by firearms seriously enough to require hospitalization, and more than 6% of these children die from their injuries.“
We’re tired of the excuses and we’re taking a stand! We will no longer accept shootings by children as tragic "accidents."
We can do better. We MUST do better.
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Today we honor a hero who truly understood the power of action, and what was to be lost when people remained silent in the face of injustice.
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If we compared gun violence in U.S. cities to the deadliest nations in the world, via Citylab:
- If it were a country, New Orleans (with a rate 62.1 gun murders per 100,000 people) would rank second in the world.
- Detroit's gun homicide rate (35.9) is just a bit less than El Salvador (39.9).
- Baltimore’s rate (29.7) is not too far off that of Guatemala (34.8).
- Gun murder in Newark (25.4) and Miami (23.7) is comparable to Colombia (27.1).
- Washington D.C. (19) has a higher rate of gun homicide than Brazil (18.1).
- Atlanta’s rate (17.2) is about the same as South Africa (17).
- Cleveland (17.4) has a higher rate than the Dominican Republic (16.3).
- Gun murder in Buffalo (16.5) is similar to Panama (16.2).
- Houston’s rate (12.9) is slightly higher than Ecuador’s (12.7).
- Gun homicide in Chicago (11.6) is similar to Guyana (11.5).
- Phoenix’s rate (10.6) is slightly higher than Mexico (10).
- Los Angeles (9.2) is comparable to the Philippines (8.9).
- Boston rate (6.2) is higher than Nicaragua (5.9).
- New York, where gun murders have declined to just four per 100,000, is still higher than Argentina (3).
- Even the cities with the lowest homicide rates by American standards, like San Jose and Austin, compare to Albania and Cambodia respectively.
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It’s true: we can have the Second Amendment AND common sense gun laws that save lives. Everyone wins! (Unless you’re the gun lobby.)
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Two chilling videosfrommotherjones’s“Spitting, Stalking, Rape Threats: How Gun Extremists Target Women,”byMark Follman:
Top, Open Carry Texas members blast a semi-nude female mannequin for target practice; bottom, a Florida gun instructor wishes gun control activists “Happy Mother’s Day” (note the bullet holes in the exclamation point).
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Guns are fun and make people feel cool.
The gun lobby makes a crazy amount of money off making and selling guns.
The politicians get enough of that money to turn the other cheek.
Mental illness is an issue everywhere that can affect anyone.
It’s all very, very simple.
If you’re not American and you’d like to be part of our solution, please, we welcome you with open arms. Help us. We are living in an actual nightmare. We are scared, and constantly mourning. We welcome your camaraderie and your voices.
If you’re here to give us your sanctimonious take on how you just can’t possibly understand how Americans could blah blah blah, please, sit it out. It’s all very simple. You have the privilege of being born in a country where this issue was never allowed to spiral out of control. There are no inherent differences between us. “In Australia we just can’t understand…” ok first of all in Australia you literally have concentration camps. And I am confident that you speak out about and against that!!!! I am. “Well in Canada” you have a deep and quite recent history of slaughtering indigenous school children. And I know you mourn that! I know you do. I know you are 100% dedicated to righting those wrongs. “In Germany we just don’t…” oh brother I am not touching that with a ten foot pole y’all.
Americans are not an alien species with inherently different problems caused by who we are fundamentally as people. We are a different country struggling with a different issue and living in a nightmare of political making. If you can’t be part of our solution, please, just focus on your own problems.
Every time, with the self righteous pile on. We get it. You “just don’t get it.” Given how simple it all is, that’s on you. Keep it to yourselves, please. It’s not appropriate today.
Tomorrow we will see their smiling faces and learn their names, and their precious ages.
On Thursday we will read a heroic story or two, about a teacher, a custodian maybe, who stood their ground and tried to fight back.
On Friday the NRA will meet as planned in Texas and we will all rage online.
On Saturday we will ask ”what are we supposed to do, just go back to normal????”
On Sunday we will.
We are America.
