For Immediate Release: August 7, 2019
Contact: William Parke-Sutherland, 608-284-0580 x 317

Kids Forward is committed to advocating for effective, long-lasting solutions that support the health and well-being of every child and every family in Wisconsin. In order for children and families to thrive, we must protect them from things that will cut their lives short. Recent tragedies in Dayton, El Paso, Gilroy and Mississippi remind us that gun violence impacts children and families in Wisconsin as well. As the number of lives lost by gun violence increases daily, we again call on our state and federal elected officials to act.

Although recent mass shootings move our nation and shine light on issues of gun safety, they also distract us with narratives centered in mental illness, and an individualized picture of hatred and racism. In fact, white supremacy, violence, and racism have been features of American culture for hundreds of years. President Trump himself has stoked anti-immigrant sentiment, laughed off calls for violence against Black and Brown people, and promoted racism through his policies and social media. This, coupled with our unwillingness to enact gun safety policies or address gun violence as a public health emergency, is fueling a crisis across America.

Scapegoating those with mental illness distracts us from the larger issue. As the American Psychological Association said in a recent statement, “We are facing a public health crisis of gun violence fueled by racism, bigotry, and hatred.” We have a critical need to confront covert and overt racism that is present, reinforced, and fed throughout all levels of society. We must also support funding, research, legislation and culture change regarding firearms.

National lawmakers have made it very difficult for researchers to identify ways of keeping children and others safe, by blocking funding for research that could yield useful information about what causes gun violence, who is most at risk, and strategies and policies for preventing gun deaths.

We call on state lawmakers to reform gun laws to make Wisconsin safer for kids and families. The number of people in Wisconsin killed with guns over the last decade has risen by more than 40%, showing the costs of inaction in stark terms. The Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort supports the following policies, which other states have implemented, as common-sense reforms that may help curb the proliferation of gun deaths in Wisconsin:

• Creating lethal violence protection orders, so that people who are in crisis can safely relinquish a firearm,
• Instituting waiting periods for firearm purchases, and
• Requiring that everyone who buys a gun, regardless of where, must submit to a thorough background check.

This Monday marked the seventh anniversary of the hate-motivated mass shooting at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. It is well past time that we tackle this issue head-on, and in order to do that we must understand more about gun deaths, gun safety, gun culture, and policies that are most likely to decrease gun violence in our society. We must do better. We must start now.