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New Gun Violence Prevention Law in MA: How We Helped Make it Happen
Right before my daughter was born, my husband and I took a childcare class. We were the typical expectant parents, eagerly awaiting the birth of our child, and petrified that we wouldn’t know what to do once she arrived. I expected to learn how to put on a diaper and what to do for an earache. What I didn’t expect was for the instructor to say that before I let my child go on a play date, I should ask the host family if they had a gun in the house and how they stored it. Before that, I had never actually thought about my quiet suburban neighbors touting firearms that could endanger my child.
Fast forward a couple of years to our joining Temple Israel in Boston. TI was a pioneer in using faith-based community organizing methods, and was engaging in house meetings. One emerging theme was huge concerns about teenagers experiencing stress and issues regarding their safety. And then, there was Newtown, CT. The tragedy of kindergarten children and their teachers being tragically murdered brought all of our attention to the threat of gun violence, and the threats that guns pose when used in crimes, suicides, and accidents.
Let’s Make Background Checks on Guns Universal
With seemingly near constant news headlines of mass shootings and other acts of gun violence, debate on prevention measures for public safety is critical. The issue of whether universal background checks should be required for all firearm purchases is a possible solution to decrease some of these disturbing statistics:
- One in three people in the U.S. know someone who has been shot;
- On average, 32 Americans are murdered with guns every day and 140 are treated in an emergency room for gun-related injuries;
- Every day, about 51 people take their own life with a gun and 45 people are shot or killed in a gun accident.
Mourning the Death of James Brady
Contact: Max Rosenblum or Howie Levine
202.387.2800 | news@rac.org
L'Taken in the News
News articles and blog posts written by and about L'Taken participants.
Speaking Out Against Sexual Violence
I entered college on the eve of the SlutWalk revolution. A 12-year-old girl had been repeatedly assaulted in Texas, and the newspaper reporting on it cited a possible motive: she was wearing makeup.
L'Taken Student Lobbies to End to Violence Against Women
Over the course of six L’Taken seminars this winter, I had the opportunity to work with inspiring groups of teen advocates dedicated to ending violence against women.
The Jewish Imperative to Fight Back Against Sexual Violence on College Campuses
College students nationwide are uniting in the fight to prevent and penalize sexual attackers on their campuses.
Not Enough: The Ongoing Fight for Women’s Liberation
As a kid, “Dayenu” was perhaps my favorite Jewish holiday song. It’s catchy, it’s upbeat, and, if you sing the full 15 verses, it goes on forever. With “Dayenu,” we express our thanks for the myriad miracles that took place at the time of the Exodus. We sing that each was so powerful that one alone would have been enough.
Murder Darkens Our Home Field, So We Set Out the Chairs
We worked until almost midnight that Thursday, the 30 of us, all middle-aged softball players, arranging tables and chairs for the funeral of a man we didn’t know terribly well. But he had died so violently, in the face of such anger, that we couldn’t stay away.
The Maror that Lasts Throughout the Year: The Bitterness of Ongoing Hate Crimes
The Department of Justice released an updated version of its Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines and Training Manual earlier this month, including new information on identifying hate crimes against Hindu Americans, Sikh Americans and Arab Americans. The FBI agreed to start tracking hate crimes against these groups in 2013, following a push by advocacy groups, including the RAC, for the FBI to expand the categories of biases it collected hate crime statistics for in the wake of the 2012 shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, WI.