Women's Health

It’s Time For GOP Senators To Stand Up For Women

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Dear U.S. Senators,

I am writing to ask you to do the right thing. The U.S. House of Representatives—including the entire Connecticut delegation—voted last week to reauthorize a version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that includes, among other changes, placing limits on convicted domestic abusers’ ability to buy firearms. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd, and Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, were two of the co-sponsors of the bill. The reauthorization passed 263 to 158 despite heavy lobbying by the National Rifle Association, which has become nothing more than a soulless gun delivery system. The organization lobbied especially hard against an expansion of the act that adds restrictions on gun-ownership by current or former dating partners, which closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the presence of a gun in the home of someone who commits domestic abuse increases fivefold the possibility of a homicide happening in that home. In a study that compared violent death rates in the U.S. with other high-income countries, U.S. women were 16 times more likely to be killed with a gun.

It’s Time To Fund Gun Violence Research

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After a white terrorist (can we just start calling these people what they are?) shot and killed at least 59 people and injured another 527 at an outdoor country music contest in Las Vegas this week, Nelba Márquez-Greene took to Twitter:

“Guess what folks? Gun violence and grief hurt in EVERY zip code. In every color. Grieving mothers need your help.”

Who can forget Márquez-Greene and her family? After her 6-year-old daughter Ana was shot and killed in the 2012 Newtown school massacre, Márquez-Greene and husband Jimmy Greene, the award-winning musician, have continually reminded this country that we can do more than offer thoughts-and-prayers over gun violence.

Gun Research

Ignorance Is Killing Us

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By 1900, there had already been some three-dozen deaths by motor vehicles. This was at a time when the top speed of the Columbia, made by Hartford-based Pope Manufacturing, was 13 miles an hour. Cars got faster, and ubiquitous. Just a half century later, the number of motor vehicle deaths had reached epidemic proportions, 53,000 and rising. All along, safety features were being added, from turn signals in the ‘20s to padded dashboards in the ‘40s.

Fines & Sanctions

Post-Charleston: Debunking NRA’s Rhetoric

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After the horrible Charleston church slaughter last month, the public response from the National Rifle Association mostly came from long-time board member Charles L. Cotton. The nine African Americans were shot and killed after they welcomed a killer into their Bible study because, said Cotton, their church pastor, South Carolina Sen. Clementa Pinckney, did not allow guns at his church. Earlier, Pinckney, who was among the victims, had voted against a concealed carry law in his state. “Eight of his church members, who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church, are dead,” said Cotton in an online forum. “Innocent people died because of his political position on the issue.”

Center for Responsive Politics

‘End The Freeze On Gun Violence Research’

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Since Newtown, the country has witnessed at least seven mass shootings. The most recent was in Chicago, where suspects used a military-type rifle and a gun, injuring 13 people in a park, including a 3-year old boy, who was shot in the head. Earlier that same week, a shooter killed 12 people at the Navy Yard in Washington. Ironically, that same day Newtown family members and other gun legislation advocates were in the nation’s capital for a long-planned trip to lobby for tighter laws. After each shooting, there’s a sense of despair that these horrible events will just keep happening.

Bushmaster

States Spent $19 Million Subsidizing Assault Rifle Manufactures

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Taxpayers across the country are subsidizing the manufacturers of assault rifles used in multiple mass killings, including the massacre of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown last month. A Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting examination of tax records shows that five companies that make semi-automatic rifles have received more than $19 million in tax breaks, most within with the past five years. “I feel horrified at the power of the gun industry over our political system, that it could exert such influence,” said Newtown resident Barbara Richardson, who lives between the homes of one of the 6-year-old victims and the shooter. Saying she respects hunters who are ethical and good neighbors, she “absolutely [does] not” support taxpayer subsidies to help manufacture assault rifles: “They’re weapons of mass destruction.”

Any new jobs due to tax subsidies are “not worth it,” said Richardson, a nurse whose first patient ever was a 19-year-old accidentally shot by his 13-year-old brother with their father’s gun. The states providing the subsidies since 2003: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Oklahoma.

American Public Health Association

Gun Violence Needs A Public Health Remedy

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After the Newtown school shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, President Obama said, “These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.’’

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, agreed, writing a letter to the President urging that the nation take a public health approach to reduce gun violence. “For too long,” Dr. Benjamin wrote, “we as a nation have failed to take on this devastating problem in our communities, and we can wait no longer.”

This is not simply a matter of semantics. Labeling something a public health issue is a game-changer. It brings together researchers and policy-makers across all sectors.