News from Duluth, MN

Duluth woman ringing the bell for an uncle who was shot in a family dispute many years ago. This was the first time she had remembered him out loud in a public event. On a cold but actually for Duluth, Minnesota, mild day, 75 hearty people showed up to remember victims of gun violence. Three T.V. stations also showed up to hear our stories. We rang our bell for the victims of the Tucson shootings. We rang our bell for the Minnesota Police Officer, Shawn Schneider, who was killed while intervening in a domestic dispute. We rang the bell for Tarrell Mayes, a 3 year old Minneapolis boy who was trying to hide in his home from gunshots outside only one of the stray bullets hit him in the head. We rang the bell for daughters who had been shot to death. We rang the bell for a brother, for an uncle for the daughter of a friend, for veterans who are increasingly killing themselves and others. I rang the bell for my sister. A new friend rang the bell for her sister who was shot 18 months ago in a domestic shooting similar to my own sister’s. There were children in the group. There were community leaders, including the director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP) who rang the bell for the victims of domestic abuse who, when killed, are most often killed with guns. A retired Deputy Police Chief rang the bell for officers lost to a bullet. There was a County Board member, a School Board member, a candidate for Congress, several ministers, many friends, and many people who had never attended one of our events before. But attend they did. It was a moving event and it hopefully shed light on our national problem of too many victims of gun deaths and injuries. Someone suggested that we have an event like this once a year on the first Sunday after the New Year. Maybe we should.