Tina Dupuy: We lose the equivalent of a small city of Americans every year to gun violence. Each year an entire Bangor, Maine is gone. Virginia Tech has 30,000 students in total. Every year the equivalent of a Virginia Tech loses their lives.
Remembering Bob Edgar
By
Peter Laarman: Bob Edgar had to contend with timidity among the good and the great especially during his years with the NCC, where denominational bigwigs (Bob’s bosses on the governing body) were privately horrified that their point person should actually seek to change oppressive systems rather than simply make mewling noises about them.
Exceptional: But Not in a Good Way
By
John Peeler: On guns and prisons, we are more like a Third World country than like other rich nations. On health care, Third World countries simply cannot afford to waste the amount of money we do. And it is doubtful that we can, either.
New York City?!?! Get a Rope!
By
Victoria Defrancesco Soto: Whether it’s salsa or gun legislation, there are some things Americans may not embrace from the Big Apple. Michael Bloomberg’s $12 million gun violence ad campaign is a case in point.
A Sabbath Against Gun Violence
By
Deborah Gitell: It is clear the only way to put an end to this non sensical violence is by coalition building. Personally, I was uplifted to stretch beyond my own comfort zone, and attend another’s faith services.
ACLU-SC Pasadena / Foothills Looks at Gun Violence, What to Do About It
By
Dick Price: “You can take it all the way back to Columbine. We have had 31 mass murders since Columbine. We get upset for six or eight months and then we go back to sleep again.
ACLU-SC Pasadena/Foothill “Gun Violence in Our Communities” Forum — March 12th
By
An upcoming ACLU-SC Pasadena/Foothills Chapter bimonthly public forum on March 12th will bring the conversation back to the no less critical gun violence taking the lives of our fellow Angelenos day in and day out.
More Preschoolers Than Cops Get Shot Dead
By
Charley James: When a five year old in America is 5.8 times more likely to die because of a gun than in all other high income nations combined, the country has a serious problem that could be easily fixed.
Mainstream Media Downplay NRA’s Close Ties to Gun Industry
By
Peter Dreier: when reporters use adjectives to describe the NRA, they don’t call it an “industry-backed” or “gun manufacturers-funded” group. Instead, they describe the NRA in terms of its political clout, calling it “powerful,” “influential,” “deep pocketed and widely feared”
What 2013 Will Bring Politically?
By
Randy Shaw: 2013 will lack the excitement of a presidential election year. But it is activism between elections that brings change.
Gun Silence
By
Tom Hall: The earnest M.C. at Saturday’s benefit concert suggested that we all pause for a minute of silence in honor of the recent tragedy in Connecticut. Seated in the audience, I wanted to scream out “NO. No more silence.”
A Broken Media and Gun Violence
By
Tom Hall: Is there anything “free” about a ‘free press’ that is controlled so as to eliminate serious discussion about an industry that leads to the death of tens of thousands of people every year?
‘Right-Wing Social Engineering’ Still Strong Despite Democratic Gains in 2012
By
Joeseph Palermo: President Obama and the Democrats’ willingness to accept cuts to Social Security in the form of the gimmicky “chained CPI” right after an election where no candidate for federal office campaigned on it shows that the Right’s long-term project of undoing the New Deal marches on despite the electorate’s wishes.
Guns Don’t Kill People, Trigger Fingers Do
By
Dotty LeMieux: As I watched one of my favorite all time classic feel good All American holiday movies, A Christmas Story, last night, I couldn’t help but cringe that the plot of that whole show revolved around one little boy’s desire for a bb gun.
Gun-Control Myths
By
Karen Finney: It’s time to reframe the conversation about guns to focus on how we address the realities of human behavior to more effectively prevent gun violence and protect our safety.
Why Do Political Elites All Hate Democracy?
By
Heather Gautney: We need to start pressing for things that our politicians did NOT discuss at the conventions. Real solutions–like universal education, debt forgiveness, wealth redistribution, and participatory political structures—that would empower us to decide together what’s best. Not who’s best.
Sharia Law: We Know What It’s About – Really?
By
Sharon Kyle: The woman speaking on the video may sincerely believe that she is doing the right thing but scratch the surface and you’ll find that there is another agenda and it ain’t to protect Americans.
Expanding Gun Rights
By
Carl Matthes: One last thought, Rep. King, to be even more safe, why not amend your bill to say that a gun may not be carried within your congressional district when you’re there?
Friday Feedback: Terrorist Threats Not “Free Speech”
By
Friday Feedback: When Sarah Palin tells her fans to “reload,” when she uses rifle scopes to depict pictorially her political enemies, when her rhetoric in Tea Bag rallies is filled with gun/violence imagery, one needn’t wonder for too long if this might have an effect in encouraging an extremist or two to shoot the man the majority of us voted into office. You don’t have to have a psychology degree to know the power of mob “groupthink” and how it can easily spur people to violence. History and research prove the deadly effectiveness of such “mob psychology.”
Friday Feedback: Gun Violence
By
Friday Feedback: n Australia, after their first experience of US business-as-usual (a massacre in Tasmania in ‘96), the Prime Minister called for gun control and an appalled population turned in their guns.
A Sick Society Normalizes Gun Violence
By
David A. Love: Based on the lack of an adequate public policy response to America’s gun problem, one must conclude that these firearm deaths are viewed as collateral damage, the price society is willing to pay for a so-called “free” society of gun ownership rights.
To the Fathers Who Lost Their Child
By
I was hoping they would cancel Father’s Day this year, mostly because my son Ezra Malik died. He was my baby boy, and he died the day before he was born, in a hospital in August of last year. He was a beautiful baby with a full head of hair and flat little feet, and [...]
A Philly Tragedy Reminds Us of America’s Gun Lust
By
here’s a story out of Philadelphia that’s enough to break your heart. On April 21, a man shot his girlfriend to death in front of her 11-year old daughter, then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. Aleen Ali, 45, a supervisor at the city’s Department of Human Services (DHS), walked up to the [...]
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
America: The World’s Greatest Purveyor of Violence Today
February is Black History Month, and a perfect time to reflect on the nonviolence and antiwar stance of Dr. Martin Luther King. Recently, my colleague, Mark Thompson, reminded me of an important Dr. King quote when I appeared on his radio show to discuss the Tucson shooting. It was a speech the slain civil rights [...]