Chief Scott M. Knight

Republican Congressman Mike Castle from Delaware had to ask Chief Knight to repeat his statistic. “Since 1963 more Americans have died from gunfire than perished in combat in the whole of the 20th century.”

Our country’s war losses are staggering and devastating to our families, but when you hear that we lose 30,000 Americans every year to gun violence, it does make you stop and think … and ask the question again.

Chief Knight is head of the Chaska, Minnesota’s police department and chair of the Firearms Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the largest association of law enforcement executives in the world.On July 14, 2010, Chief Knight provided testimony on H.R 2324, the bill to close the gun show loophole, at the first-ever Congressional Forum on the gun show loophole. Brady activists and Virginia Tech victims pressed Representative Bobby Scott (VA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, to hold the Forum.

That’s when Chief Knight’s statistic about America’s losses to gun violence struck disbelief among the Committee members and audience in the packed hearing room. “The loss of so many lives is senseless, but the solutions are obvious. The solid first step is to close the gun show loophole that allows the sale of guns on a cash and carry basis, with no identification required.”

Chief Knight’s fight for strict gun laws is not only professional. ” It’s personal,” he says. “A few years ago, one of my officers was shot in the line of duty. And last May, another officer, an uncle to one of my sergeants, was ambushed, shot and killed.”

Chief Knight actively speaks out for stronger gun laws every occasion he gets. In 2007, he joined other law enforcement at a Brady press conference urging Congress to repeal the Tiahrt provision that limits law enforcement’s access to crime trace data that would help solve gun crimes. He also advocates for reporting of lost or stolen guns; safe storage of firearms and ammunition, especially around children; and limits on the kinds of guns and ammunition that can be purchased. “Military assault weapons and armor-piercing bullets do not belong on our streets. We’re being outgunned. It’s like law enforcement is in an arms race with criminals.”

But Chief Knight also recognizes the challenge of moving legislators to side with law enforcement in enacting strict, life-saving gun laws. “We need partners in every community, we need elected officials in Congress and in state legislatures to stop catering to special interests and instead act in the public interest to reduce the terrible, and escalating, risk of gun violence in America.”

CLICK HERE to tell your U.S. Senators to take action to CLOSE THE GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE!

I’m not doing this because I work for the Brady Campaign . . .

I’m doing this as someone who worked to get Gabby Giffords elected… someone who knew Gabe Zimmerman, her staffer who was killed last January… and as someone who understands all too well that it could have been you or me standing in front of that Safeway in Tucson.

My heart breaks to think of all the lives that were changed forever because it was way too easy for a disturbed man to get semi-automatic with a high-capacity assault clip.

I think of Gabe, who wanted to someday be a school teacher;

Of Dorwin Stoddard, who threw himself on top of his wife, Mavy, to protect her from gunfire;

Of Christina-Taylor Green, a 9 year-old whose dream was to some day be the first woman to play major league baseball;

And I’m determined to act so that no one else has to die in a senseless shooting spree like they did. So please — I ask you to mark this solemn anniversary by standing with the Brady Campaign once again.

I ask you to make a gift for those we lost, for those who survived and for all of us who understand that as long as our nation’s weak gun laws make it easy for dangerous people to get deadly weapons, this kind of tragedy could happen again in any of our communities.

“I think the more we tell our stories, the more we give others the permission to tell theirs,” says William Kellibrew, president and spokesman of the William Kellibrew Foundation. “That helps break the silence and moves people to act.”

William has been moved to speak out and act because of his tragedy. William’s mother and brother were shot in front of him when he was a young boy. The shooter turned to William, placing the gun to his head. William begged for his life and was let go. After a nearly three-hour standoff, police entered to find three bodies, including the killer’s. The shooter was a convicted felon who had spent 11 years in prison, but illegally got his hands on a gun.

The William Kellibrew Foundation is dedicated to helping victims of gun violence and domestic violence find their voices and restore their lives. The Brady Campaign and Brady Center are honored to house the Foundation in its Washington, DC office.The Foundation’s partnership with the Brady Campaign extends beyond shared office space. William’s speaking tours take him around the country, and at every stop, he helps to educate people about the Brady Campaign’s legislative agenda to enact stronger gun laws.

William has told his story countless times – both here in the United States and abroad. He has been a guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which has 40 million viewers across the globe. Just recently, he was the keynote speaker at an event sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime for National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

Along with Brady President Paul Helmke, he joined a press event and rally after four young people were killed and five others injured, where they urged Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty to do more to stop gun violence. Ironically, at the same time D.C. activists were at the rally, U.S. Senators John McCain and Jon Tester offered legislation to gut all of D.C.’s gun laws. William and the Brady Campaign believe that it would be foolhardy to make it easier for dangerous people to get guns and will work to stop this dangerous legislation.

No matter how frequently he tells the story, it never gets easier to tell. William admits, “It’s a treacherous story, and has been a long road to recovery. I have to live with it every day, but it’s motivational for me and those who hear it. For those who can do it, using their story to channel grief to more positive actions is incredibly effective.”

“When we are organized, we can do something,” says Joan Peterson, national representative to the Board of Directors of the Brady Campaign, and a leading voice for Protect Minnesota, the result of an operating merger between Citizens for a Safer Minnesota and the Minnesota Million Mom March. Joan says that email activist campaigns have made all the difference in local advocates’ ability to build momentum to help pass strong gun laws – or defeat bad ones.

Minnesota’s gun violence prevention and other advocacy groups have pooled resources to pay for Democracy in Action, a web-based tool that makes possible an e-mail network and e-alerts to Congress. Joan admits that working together through the e-mail network “has made us stronger as a group. Since we are now using one state monthly e-mail and one state newsletter, we can call attention to issues as they come up in one voice.”
The fundraisers also helped cover the cost of Minnesota News Connection, a public radio program and news service. Joan and other advocates have helped shape MNC coverage of the gun violence issue. Joan was interviewed about the Fort Hood shootings recently. The story was picked up by local states and reached more than 700,000 listeners in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Fargo, North Dakota.

Minnesota’s united voices have also brought about major victories for common sense gun laws. This past summer, e-mail campaigns among the Minnesota groups helped put pressure on Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar to vote against South Dakota Senator John Thune’s amendment on national concealed carry legislation. At a reception for the area’s nonprofit organizations attended by Senator Franken, Joan did a bee-line for the Senator and thanked him personally for his vote.

It has also made the difference in coordinating efforts quickly. The day that Todd Palin, husband of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, showed up at a local gun store, Joan pulled together a group of protesters real fast through emails to multiple listservs.

“People came with signs. ‘Hunters for Obama’ were there, and then, it turned out so was National Rifle Association President Wayne Lapierre!” Joan did a television interview on the spot – with the rallied supporters behind her – and presented her contrasting view on the gun issue.

Joan witnessed the power of many voices when she went to Washington, DC in 2000 for the Million Mom March. “The march gave us a vehicle to talk about gun violence, to raise awareness about it.” Joan, whose sister was shot to death, recalls the T-shirts and signs commemorating loved ones. “There are a lot of us,” she remembers realizing that day. Joan met Mary Streufert, founding co-president of the Northland Chapter, at the march. Pictures of their loved ones were right next to each other.

The Northland Chapter is in Minnesota’s District 8, one of the Brady Campaign’s targeted districts to build long-term political support for common sense gun laws. The focus now is on H.R. 2324 and S. 843, the House and Senate bills to close the gun show loophole. Representative Jim Oberstar, a Democrat with a B+-rating from the NRA, holds the seat, and according to Joan’s conversations with him and his aides, the Congressman is open to learning more about legislative solutions to gun violence. Joan knows that the voices of victims and “gun guys” can be especially effective.

“We make sure they hear from victims and gun owners in the district. We’ve also forged relationships with our Mayors in Duluth, Minneapolis, and St Paul, as well as with law enforcement. And we let our legislators hear from us – from gun violence prevention groups and from other area organizations. We let them know that all of us are watching them and holding them accountable.”

Mindy Finkelstein was in the right place at the right time – playing capture the flag on a sunny morning with five and six year old campers at the North Valley Jewish Community Center’s summer camp. On their way to the arts and crafts, though, it all went wrong.

That’s when Mindy was shot … along with three campers … by a self-proclaimed new-Nazi, out on parole and clinically insane. He got his weapon, a semi-automatic weapon, at a gun show.
“In an instant my campers went from running across the back grassy field to asking me if I had paint all over me. It was blood,” Mindy remembers. “It has been ten years and I can still remember every detail of that day and the feelings I had as a result.”

Mindy’s shooter was out on parole from the state of Washington. He crossed the state line into California, and he was criminally insane. He even tried to lock himself in a mental hospital and was denied entrance. He was so ill that, from what Mindy was told, the Aryan Nation kicked him out for being “a threat to their cause.” Yet, he was able to walk into a gun show and legally purchase his murder weapon.

“My opinion on gun legislation is simple,” Mindy explains. “It’s narrowed down to common sense and personal safety.

“Everyone makes the comparison that you have to have a license to drive a car but not to own a gun. For me it’s even less complicated than that. A car’s sole intent is to help get people from place to place. A sole purpose of a gun is to kill. So, making it harder to get a gun should be obvious.” Her shooter took advantage of the loophole in the sale of guns at gun shows. Private sellers at gun shows are not required to conduct Brady background checks on purchasers. “Bufford Furrow bought the gun he used against me without a background check or waiting period.”

Mindy became involved with the Brady Campaign after she spoke to nearly a million people at the Million Mom March in 2000. Mindy works with the San Fernando Chapter of the Brady Campaign, and recently organized the Victory over Violence 5K and 10K walk-a-thons to benefit the local Women against Gun Violence group. And she is a frequent speaker for schools, churches and congregrations, and civic groups, speaking out about gun violence and for common sense gun laws.

“At a recent Brady event, I met the father of one of the Virginia Tech victims who told me that I have a responsibility to speak for his daughter so that she could also lend her silenced voice to the cause. This is a responsibility that I don’t take lightly… and never will. I can’t bring back or replace the victims of gun violence in any way but what I can do is use my face and voice to show the truth behind gun violence. That’s why I continue to work with Brady to strengthen our country’s gun laws – especially to close the gun show loophole that threatened the life of me and my campers’ – and today still puts our communities at risk.”

CLICK HERE to tell your U.S. Representative to CLOSE THE GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE!

STATEMENT OF DENNIS HENIGAN,
BRADY CAMPAIGN ACTING PRESIDENT, ON REP. GIFFORDS’ DECISION TO RESIGN FROM CONGRESS

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Brady Campaign Acting President Dennis Henigan today issued the following statement in response to U. S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ announcement that she would resign her seat in Congress this week.

“We understand but are deeply saddened by the news that Rep. Giffords has decided to resign her seat in Congress because of the demands of her continued rehabilitation from the gunshot wound she suffered a year ago in Tucson.  Congress and the American people now have lost the service of another devoted public servant because of gun violence.  It is sadly reminiscent of the nation’s loss of Jim Brady as Presidential press secretary due to a similar gunshot injury 30 years ago.  We hope Rep. Giffords’ departure is only temporary and wish her well on her amazing and inspiring recovery.”

Elder Bernice King Addresses Congregants at St. Sabina

On Sunday, January 8, 2012, at the Faith Community of St. Sabina, a Catholic parish on the south side of Chicago, Elder Bernice A. King, the youngest daughter of the late Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered to an interfaith audiencean empowering and impactful message of nonviolence, “Exchange your piece for His peace.”  More than twelve hundred congregants and guests filled the room.

Father Michael Pfleger, the Pastor of St. Sabina, acknowledged in his introduction of Elder King, “I am a priest today because of what Dr. King and what he deposited in my life in 1966.” Father Pfleger had asked Elder Bernice King to focus her message on a call to nonviolence.  But it is clear that no one anticipated the more than memorable direction that Elder King’s message took and that we all were left the better for it.

Elder King delivered her sermon from the New King’s Version Chapters Matthew 5:9, which reads, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God”; John 14:27, which reads “Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid”; and Romans 8:19, which reads “For the honest expectation of the creature, eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God,”

Focusing on a call of nonviolence, Elder King stressed the need to “Exchange your P-I-E-C-E for His (referring to Christ) PEACE.”  Noting how we almost always want to give someone a piece of our mind,  Elder King cited two of the most dangerous weapons in the world as “our tongue and weapons we call guns, knives and other things. Those are our piece, but if we are going to have true peace in the world, P-E-A-C-E,and non-violence is going to be our way, then we have to exchange, give up, trade-in, your piece for His peace,” she said referring to Jesus Christ.

Elder King highlighted the need for a paradigm shift from peace- (& piece-) keeping to peace-making. “In too many instances when we’re talking about peace, we’re talking about peace keepers. We’re talking about trying to do something to temporarily quiet things down. We’re talking… about trying to get people to just cool out for a period of time, but I don’t know about you but at some point my cooling off is going to wear out and I will be right back to where I was to give you my piece.

“It’s got to be a little bit more than just keeping the peace,” she said. “Keeping the peace many times is indicative of people who don’t want any trouble. They don’t want to get down and dirty with a situation. They want to be cute and proper, clean, cool… but if you are a peacemaker you have to go through a process of confronting some ugly things. Dr. King was a peacemaker.”

This photo demonstrates the magnitude of the altar call that Elder Bernice King made to congregants, each one rededicating themselves to the struggle to be peacemakers.

Referring to peacemaking, Elder King stated that it is difficult to make peace if one does not have an understanding that true peace really comes by being at peace with the ultimate Peacemaker. “Jesus was a transformer and he was a revolutionary transformer. He was an ultimate peacemaker…You have to first have peace with God before you can even begin to be a peacemaker. You can’t give something that you do not have; so if you don’t have peace with God who is the ultimate Peacemaker, then it’s going to be impossible for you to be a vessel for peace.”

Elder King cautioned, “Peace with God is essential if we’re going to bring peace into our streets; It takes an individual who has come to an end of themselves to be that kind of weapon, that kind of vessel.” “…The world we live in today will not change until the people of God get in line, give up your piece, your prerogative, your desire and surrender to His peace, His prerogative and His desire. Nothing else will change and transform lives.”

“It’s good to gather in our houses of worship all around this nation, but at the end of the day, I think God is grieved when we just gather in these settings and nothing takes place to move out into the streets and the highways, the byways and the crevices and in the cracks to bring about change and transformation in peoples lives.”

“Nonviolence is in the tradition of peacemaking. It means you are not afraid to go into a war zone. You’re not afraid to go in a zone of conflict and violence. You’re not afraid to confront some ugly things and some dangerous and difficult things. It means you don’t buy into the notion that I can’t snitch on nobody.

Elder King distinguished that when you can’t snitch on anyone, “you’re just a peacekeeper, but a peacemaker has to speak up, has to stand up, has to say something, can’t be quiet and is willing to lay down their life for the cause. That’s a peacemaker. That’s not a peacekeeper.”

Elder King observed that a peacemaker is a person is not afraid of controversy or of challenges. “To be a true authentic, real what you call Christian (that) I call son of God and a citizen of the Kingdom of God, then you can’t be afraid to stand up, to speak up, to risk your life to go into some dark and dirty and difficult and hard places and be willing to risk the loss of some things. Our young people deserve it. The next generation is waiting for some people of God who’re willing to pay the cost of discipleship because it’s a discipline. Nonviolence is a discipline.”

“This is a call for peacemakers. This ain’t for peacekeepers. This ain’t for wimpy…weak, scary, intimidated folks. This is for folks who are not afraid to stand up when it is not popular, who are not afraid to speak up even though people may try to shut you down. These are for people who don’t care what they say about you because you know who you are in the Lord. This is not for people who run away from conflict, controversy and persecution.  Our children need us to put our lives on the line, to put our reputations on the line….”

Reflecting on her father’s statements, Elder King said, “true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it’s the presence of justice. Until there is justice, we’re not going to have peace…. People have to treated justly. Conditions have to be right. We have to deal with the wealth disparities in our nation today…Violence is only the voice of the unheard, and we’ve created a system that has locked too many people out. We’ve got to come together, band together, people of God. We’ve got to be willing to go into the center of this storm and this crisis because it’s about to pop,” she warned.

Igniting the audience, Elder King said, “When we show up in the streets of Chicago starting from this day forward, you show up as a king under the King of kings with the authority to release His peace in the land and call everybody who is out of order to come into order, but if you don’t have yourself in order for the ultimate King, then you will not be able to be effective in this way.”

She urged congregants to “stand in that authority and move in your kingship and begin to work to reclaim Chicago as the Kingdom of God. This will be a beloved community…because today some people decide to make a decision to lay down their life and to be a warrior of the kingdom.”

With a powerful message such as this, it is no wonder why congregants filed up from every direction, to answer the altar call.

Early on in her message, King acknowledged the presence of the Violence Interrupters, Senator Jacqueline Collins, the members of the Nation of Islam who were present and Ondelee Perteet who in September of 2009 at the age of 14 had plans of attending Orr Academy but instead was shot at a party leaving him paralyzed. He was there with his mother, Detreena Perteet. Father Pfleger presented them with a “Blue Heart Award.” (Click Here for VIDEO of the Award presentation)