I have mixed emotions every year when we announce our annual National High School Essay Contest in January and again when we announce the winners in June. On the negative side, it’s shameful that there’s a need for high school students to think and write about our country’s ongoing epidemic of gun violence. Those of us in older generations should have stopped this epidemic long ago. On the positive side, though, I’m glad that we’re [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence Every year when we announce the opening of our annual Americans Against Gun Violence National High School Essay Contest, I’m pleased on the one hand, and deeply troubled on the other. And this year, I’m more troubled than ever. I’m pleased because I believe that our essay contest, which we’ve hosted annually since 2018, is an important way of stimulating and rewarding critical thinking on [...]

Sharing the Blame for the Apalachee High School Mass Shooting A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence On September 4, 2024, a 14 year-old student at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, brought an AR-15 style rifle to school and killed two fellow 14 year-old students and two teachers and wounded nine other students and staff.[1] The student, Colt Gray, was known to have serious mental health problems. His mother, with whom [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   We may never know what prompted a baby-faced 20-year-old young man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, to borrow his father’s AR-15 style rifle and attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at an open air political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 13, 2024. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service agent after firing multiple shots, one of which grazed Trump’s right ear. One bystander was killed [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence On June 21, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision that Zackey Rahimi didn’t have a constitutional right to own a gun. Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. It shouldn’t have taken the Court 356 days from the date that it agreed to hear this case and 227 days from the date that it heard oral arguments to reach this decision. Here are [...]

“Gun Control in Great Britain After the 1996 Dunblane Primary School Mass Shooting: A Model for the United States” Full Text of the Keynote Address by Michael North, Ph.D. Presented at the Americans Against Gun Violence Annual Dinner In Sacramento, California, October 21, 2023 With an introduction by Americans Against Gun Violence President Dr. Bill Durston   Dr. Durston: During the many years that I’ve been working in the field of gun violence prevention, I’ve [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence I’ve been working in one way or another on the issue of gun violence prevention for much of my adult life – ever since 1969, that is, when I returned from serving in combat as a member of the U.S. Marines in the war in Vietnam. Having just left a war zone, I didn't want to permanently live in one. In all the years that [...]

In the aftermath of the mass shooting in which three nine-year-old children and three staff members were killed by a former student at a church affiliated elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, the PBS NewsHour conducted an interview with a child psychologist, Dr. Tori Cordiano, in which the interviewer, Amna Nawaz, asked Dr. Cordiano what parents and caregivers should tell their children about school shootings. Dr. Cordiano replied: You can start with, “I want to tell [...]

A Two-Word Summary of the Supreme Court’s New One-Step Test for the Constitutionality of Gun Laws: "Blatant Hypocrisy" A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, in its entirety: A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. For most of our nation’s history, courts used [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   It was just over a week ago - a few days after the horrific mass shooting in which an 18 year old white supremacist targeted African Americans at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and wounding three others - that I posted message concerning what had turned out to be a tragically prescient winning essay that a 9th grade high school student in Arizona [...]