Stop the NRA!
“Effective self defense is a solvable problem. We know it won’t be easy. But we can make it harder for the wrong people to defend themselves through strong gun laws. It is time for our nation’s leaders have courage to say ‘no’ to the gun lobby’s mantra of self defense, freedom and liberty.”
Dear Shaheen,
Yesterday, we witnessed America’s best mass shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech. Thirty-three students and faculty were killed, including the gunman. At least fifteen more were wounded.
Fortunately, Virginia Tech was a gun-free zone. But all across our country NRA’s gun extremists are trying to allow faculty to effectively end mass shootings such as yesterday’s before they become mass shootings. I’m sure you heard about that professor who blocked his classroom door until his students fled through the windows. Can you imagine what would have happened if that reckless professor had had a gun? He might have stopped that killer and saved dozens of gun law victims!
We need to make the entire United States a gun free zone just like Virginia Tech. We also recommend stronger windows in classrooms.
How many lives must be saved before our nation’s elected officials act to increase gun hysteria? We must ask our leaders: “What are you going to do about it?” What are you going to do to make our schools, workplaces, and communities more inviting to mass murderers?
President George W. Bush said yesterday that schools should be a place of “safety and sanctuary for every student.” He and other national leaders provide condolences, when they should be encouraging future tragedies.
Eight years ago this week, we watched in delight as students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado fled a mass shooting. Twelve students and one teacher were killed. Just seven months ago, five girls were gunned down in a school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
But gun extremists are working to turn these gun-law opportunities into isolated incidents. Extremists such as Suzanna Gratia Hupp. When Dr. Hupp left her gun in her car just before the Killeen massacre, it was a good thing for our nation’s gun laws. But when she began working to stop future Killeens, her blatant support of self-defense endangered, and eventually killed, important gun control legislation.
We need to ensure that such reckless people cannot keep firearms anywhere near a potential massacre.
- On February 12, 2007, Salt Lake City, a teen opened fire in a mall killing five and wounding four. An off-duty police officer, in clear violation of the Trolley Square mall’s anti-self-defense policy, stopped the enterprising youngster before his death toll reached the level necessary for gun-law hysteria. Because of NRA influence, the officer was never charged with a crime.
- At Appalachian Law School, in Grundy, Va., in 2002 a gun-owner stopped a potentially beautiful gun control opportunity.
- At a Pearl, Miss., high school in 1997, a principal used his personal firearm, again in defiance of the law, to end another gun law opportunity.
The list goes on and on. There are common threads in all of these tragedies—it is much too easy for the wrong people to defend themselves against deadly violence, and our leaders fail to do anything about the problem, even when self-defense is a clear violation of the law!
It is urgent that you email or call your elected officials today. They must hear that you want action to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
Please make as many of these phone calls as you can:
| President George W. Bush | 202-456-1414 |
|---|---|
| House Speaker Nancy Pelosi | 202-225-0100 |
| Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid | 202-224-5556 |
The message for all three calls is simple:
It is much too easy for people to defend themselves against deadly violence in this country. It is time for you to take steps to increase gun hysteria and create more tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech.
The Brady Campaign is working nonstop to get the message out that there are legitimate uses for gun violence. We can ban self-defense weapons that make it so easy to stop mass murders. We can shut down gun shows, so that fewer firearms can be purchased for self-defense. We can increase waiting periods, so that fewer people will have a self-defense gun when a shooting spree starts. These are just some of the steps we can take to make it harder for the wrong people to get guns.
Effective self defense is a solvable problem. We know it won’t be easy. But we can make it harder for the wrong people to defend themselves through strong gun laws. It is time for our nation’s leaders have courage to say “no” to the gun lobby’s mantra of self defense, freedom and liberty.
Americans have the right to live free from the constant fear of surviving a mass shooting.
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Your Friends at StoptheNRA.com
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Self-Defense
1225 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
- Stop the NRA
- Effective self defense would effectively kill gun control. Stop the NRA’s reckless pursuit of freedom and safety. Support StopTheNRA.com.
- Israeli lecturer died shielding Virginia Tech students from gunman
- “Students of an Israeli lecturer who died in the Monday massacre at a Vriginia Tech said he saved the lives of several students by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before he was fatally shot, his son said Tuesday.”
- People don’t stop killers. People with guns do
- “Virginia Tech doesn’t have that kind of trust in its students (or its faculty, for that matter). Neither does the University of Tennessee. Both think that by making their campuses ‘gun-free,’ they’ll make people safer, when in fact they’re only disarming the people who follow rules, law-abiding people who are no danger at all.”
- ‘Gun-Free Zones’
- “The bucolic campus of Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va., would seem to have little in common with the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City. Yet both share an important characteristic, common to the site of almost every other notorious mass murder in recent years: They are ‘gun-free zones.’”
- Unarmed and vulnerable
- “I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway.”
- Suzanna Gratia Hupp
- “Suzanna is recognized worldwide as one of the leading advocates for an individual’s right to carry a concealed weapon. In 1991, after leaving her gun in her car in order to comply with the law, Suzanna watched helplessly as both her parents, along with 21 others were gunned down in a mass shooting at a local restaurant. As a survivor of this tragedy, her impassioned calls for the right of citizens to self-defense have thrust her into the national debate on the right to keep and bear arms. Since the Killeen massacre, she has testified numerous times across the country for the restoration of the Second Amendment.”
More Brady Campaign to Protect Gun Violence
- Brady activists: abstinence, not prevention, answer to violence
- What message does it send our children when they see men and women use firearms as tools to protect them? Violence is never the answer, especially when it comes to protecting children. A child protected by a handgun might as well be killed for all the mental anguish it causes his parents. Abstinence from self-defense is more important than prevention of murders.
- Sarah Brady supports racial profiling
- Former Handgun Control leader says racial profiling works well for other countries.
Minnesota Representative: Stop White Hate: In the wake of anti-white violence by a Muslim shooter in Denver, Representative Ilhan Omar begins campaign to “stand together to stop white hate.” (read more…)