Dear Friend,

Last night, eight people -- six of them Asian American women -- in three Atlanta spas were shot to death by a white man. [1]  Our hearts are broken for the victims’ families, for Atlanta, and for the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community that has already been living in fear due to the escalation of AAPI hate crimes. [2]

While we don’t yet know the full details of the Atlanta shooting, we do know that the shooter used gun violence to kill innocent people. This mindset of reaching for a gun is all too pervasive and terrifying.

Our elected leaders must act now to stop gun violence, starting with the small first step of passing universal background checks on gun sales.

Authorities have raised doubts that race was a factor in the Atlanta mass shooting. [3]  While the details are still emerging, we know that these murders are not isolated incidents. Anti-Asian racism and violence has a long history in America, from the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, to Trump’s race-baiting references to COVID as the “China virus.” Over the last two years, according to recent polling by NAPAWF, nearly half of Asian American and Pacific Islander women have been affected by anti-Asian racism, and AAPI women regularly experience racialized misogyny. [4] 

Vilification of any group in a society, where there are more guns than people, has inevitable violent consequences. This is what we are seeing now.

The U.S. House recently passed gun legislation to tighten up background checks on gun sales, and now it’s up to the U.S. Senate to turn it into law. Tell the U.S. Senate to act against gun violence now and pass universal background checks.

In 2020, as though the pandemic weren't already too much to bear, gun violence rose dramatically with over 19,000 people killed in shootings and firearm-related incidents. [5] Tragically and all too often, who is harmed by gun violence has been determined by race, ethnicity, or gender. [6]

Asian American women -- and everyone -- deserve to feel safe. While we mourn the Atlanta shootings, we must also fight the explosive combination of guns, racism, and misogyny to reduce the likelihood of such tragedies ever happening again.

In love and solidarity,

Gloria and the MomsRising AAPI Affinity Group

References:

[1] “8 dead in Atlanta-area spa shootings, suspect arrested,” NBCNews, March 16, 2021.
[2] “Anti-Asian Attacks Rise During Pandemic. Read NPR's Stories On The Surge In Violence,” NPR, March 17, 2021.
[3] “Atlanta spa shootings suspect charged with murder; too soon to tell if killings were racially motivated, police say,” USAToday, March 21, 2021.
[4] “NAPAWF comments on murder of Asian women in Georgia spa shootings,” Asian American Press, March 17, 2021.
[5] “2020 Will End as One of America's Most Violent Years in Decades,” Time.com, December 30, 2020.
[6] “Ignoring the Intersectionality of Gun Violence,” Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review, November 26, 2019.

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