Good morning, gun violence prevention advocates. A lot has happened since our last issue of Taking A Stand, the CeaseFirePA newsletter. Our executive director, Adam Garber, will be present at the White House with President Biden to celebrate the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. More mass shootings have happened around the country, a terrible blow to family traditions for the Independence Day holiday. We also have a new budget! We’ll update you on all of these things and more.

A critical vote is potentially happening next week to confirm President Biden’s nominee to lead the ATF. As we’ve discussed in the past, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has had no Senate-confirmed leader since 2015, prior to President Trump’s term of office. This role is so important because, in addition to enforcement of all the laws we already have on the books and intervention to prevent massive attacks in our communities, this person is tasked with holding big gun sellers accountable to our laws too. We’ve emailed you in recent months about the toll our communities have faced because of major gun distributors who fail to meet federal and state laws. We need a leader of the ATF who will prioritize this, and Former US Attorney Steve Dettelbach, President Biden’s nominee, will do just that.

Leave a message for Senator Toomey by calling his office at this number: (202) 224-4254

We have great news to share on the PA state budget. It includes $105 million in investments toward gun violence prevention, the result of a monumental effort by our coalition and its many partners and allies.

Click here to read our full statement. This result is a testament to all the work our coalition has done to influence the state budget in a positive direction.

We all faced a holiday weekend of tremendous violence, including a despairing attack in Highland Park, Illinois, where seven people were killed and forty-nine more were injured. One survivor, a two-year-old boy, was scooped up by passersby fleeing the scene and was protected from direct harm. Unfortunately, the attack resulted in the murder of his mom and dad, and he will now be raised by extended family. This latest mass shooting was the 309th mass shooting in America in 2022 on the 185th day of the year.

Across Pennsylvania and across the country, our lax gun laws endangered so many. A fourteen-year-old boy, who found an unsecured gun with neighborhood friends, is now dead. In Lehighton, a case of domestic violence turned deadly, with a husband murdering his wife and then ending his own life as well. In Harrisburg, where the sound of fireworks going off frightened a crowd enjoying food truck festivities, a stampede ensued. The collective belief at that moment was that another Highland Park attack was happening. Even where gun violence is not happening, it is ever-present in our lives.

A recent report from Mother Jones shows that extreme risk protection orders, a law that Pennsylvania doesn't currently have, have stopped dozens of mass shootings from happening.

From Mother Jones National Affairs Editor Mark Folman:

"A study from the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis, published this month in the peer-reviewed journal InjuryPrevention, examined a total of 201 cases in California during a three-year period beginning in January 2016, when the state’s policy went into effect. None of the 58 individuals who threatened mass shootings committed such attacks after they were subjected to what California calls “gun violence restraining orders.” Nor did any of them later commit suicide using a gun, which is both a major factor in mass shootings and the leading type of gun death annually in the United States. Red flag laws appear to help prevent suicide in general; 40 percent of the 201 total cases involved threats of self-harm, and a quarter of the cases involved threats of harm both to self and others."

Given the harrowing gun suicide crisis and the horrific number of mass shootings we are facing, we continue to urge the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pass our extreme risk protection order proposal. Learn more about it here.

Our executive director, Adam Garber, will be at the White House on Monday to celebrate the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This law will not end our crisis, and there is so much work to still be done, but it is a historic moment that deserves our joy. For almost three decades, no substantive federal legislation was passed to reduce gun violence in our communities, and we believe this is one of many moments to come.

Are you looking for new ways to deepen your impact to end gun violence? Consider becoming a sustaining donor of our work. All of our donors, and most especially our recurring donors, help to protect the strength of our work into the future so we can end this crisis, once and for all.

CeaseFirePA
P.O. Box 60095
Philadelphia, PA 19102
United States

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