September 5, 2024
Yesterday, I was on the phone with parents, volunteers, students, teachers and advocates from Georgia. Once again, we find ourselves with a community of people, shocked that their children are gone. That their children and their teachers were murdered by someone with an AR-15 style assault weapon. Only this time it was at the hands of a 14 year, who should have never had his hands on a weapon of war in the first place.
We grieve for the families of Apalachee High School and the community of Winder, GA. We grieve for the families of Richard Aspinwall, Christina Irimie, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo. And we grieve for the over 40,000 gun deaths that occur each year in America. Gun violence in now the number one killer of children, and has officially been declared a public health crisis by the US Surgeon General.
BUT NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION! We cannot wait for the next set of children to be murdered in their classroom..,or church, or synagogue, or mosque. Gun laws make a difference. GA is a state with virtually no gun laws. They have a longstanding "F" grade for the weakness of their gun laws. We need all States to be United in passing common-sense, life-saving laws, like: permit to purchase and safe storage requirements, background checks and assault weapons bans. Gun laws matter, and they work.
Help us to create and support laws and promote advocacy that is desperately needed in places like GA and other red states where elected officials are willing to wait until the next tragedy to do something.
Well, we are not willing to wait.
Are you?
Please think about acting today and help us to build and support an affiliate organization in GA.
Our lives depend on it.
Jeremy Stein
Executive Director
States United to Prevent Gun Violence
