Guns non violence sculpture[/caption]
Leanne Jenkins----A young woman writes: “My name is Carlee Soto. Last year, my sister Vicki was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary where she was a teacher. Learning that she had been killed was the worst moment of my life, and my family still deals with the pain every day.”
With this statement in an email sent to individuals in the press and to those interested in gun laws and gun rights legislation, Soto underlines the issue of guns in a personal way. And research substantiates the need to examine closely the problem of gun ownership in the United States, as it has been found that those states with higher rates of gun ownership also have higher rates of gun-related deaths. Soto is asking for donations to help the cause of reducing gun violence.
And like many people who have lost families to gun violence, Soto wants to make a difference, as she goes on to say, “This summer, I joined the No More Names bus tour at several stops across the country to share my family's story and hopefully change some minds. I want to do whatever I can to make sure other families are never put through the heartbreak that so many of us, including my family, have felt.
Vicki died trying to save the children she taught -- and I'm taking her example of courage to Washington. I'm going to look members of Congress directly in the eye and demand better laws that will save lives.”
The American Journal of Public Health reports a study that examined gun ownership experience using data from 1981 to 2010 and found the level of gun ownership increased homicide rates related to guns.
Researchers say, “Understanding the relationship between the prevalence of gun ownership and therefore the availability of guns and firearm-related mortality is critical to guiding decisions regarding recently proposed measures to address firearm violence,” the authors conclude.
Despite this type of evidence, those conservatives who believe in increasing gun ownership continue to maintain that having a gun reduces one's chances of being shot by a gun.
