"What can we do to prevent these mass shootings?" A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   A friend sent me an email the day after the mass shooting on November 7 at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California. He asked: "Bill, what can we do to prevent these mass shootings?" I replied: "It's simple, Jim. We need to adopt stringent gun control laws in the United States comparable [...]

Responding to the Pittsburgh Synagogue Mass Shooting: Condemning Anti-Semitism is Not Enough A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence On Saturday, October 27, a gunman armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and three handguns entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during worship services and killed 11 people and wounded at least six others before being shot by police and taken into custody. The gunman, 46 year old Robert Bowers, had posted rabidly [...]

Keynote Address by Bill Durston, MD President, Americans Against Gun Violence At the AfriPeace Foundation Annual Benefit Dinner Sacramento, California, October 13, 2018   I’d like to thank Dr. Uwazie for the honor of being invited to speak this evening and also for the work that he and his colleagues do through the AfriPeace Foundation. The late South African leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Nelson Mandela, once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon [...]

Calling Out Kavanaugh... For his Hypocrisy on Gun Control and the Second Amendment   A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence In his opening statement at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, sought to portray himself as a humble servant of the U.S. Constitution. He stated: A judge must be independent and interpret the law, not make the [...]

Open Carry Is Coming Soon...Unless We Act Now A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   Unless we act now, open carry of loaded guns is coming soon to a theater near you – and to restaurants, grocery stores, parks, sidewalks, streets, and other public places as well. If you live in a state like Alaska, Alabama, Louisiana, or Texas that already allows open carry of loaded firearms in most public places, [...]

“Why Do I have To March For My Life?” And Other Winning Essays in the 2018 Americans Against Gun Violence National High School Essay Contest A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence In March of this year, we announced our first annual Americans Against Gun Violence National High School Essay Contest, open to all high school students in the United States and its territories. The prompt for the contest was a statement [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence Our country is once again reeling from yet another mass shooting on a U.S. school campus. At about 7:30 AM Central Daylight Time on Friday, May 18, a 17 year old student at Santa Fe High School, located in a town of about 12,000 people 20 miles west of Galveston, Texas, opened fire with a shotgun and a handgun, killing eight students and two teachers [...]

An Open Letter to Student Gun Control Activists From the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   Dear Student Activists, I’m writing to you on behalf of Americans Against Gun Violence to express our full support for your demands for definitive action to prevent future tragedies like the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14. Your outrage is reasonable and appropriate, and we applaud you for your activism. [...]

13 Days Later: A Tale of Two Countries (Reprise) A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence February 27, 2017   Note: If you’ve been reading my president’s messages on a regular basis, the title of this message will be familiar. I used the same title after the October 1, 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas in which 58 people were killed and 422 were wounded. I’m going to keep re-using this title [...]

Valentine’s Day School Massacre in One of our “Safest Cities” A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   On February 14, 2018, a 19 year-old former student armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle shot and killed 17 students and staff and wounded at least 14 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Parkland had been rated as one of Florida’s two safest cities, and the 15th safest city in [...]