The Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock will explore the frequency of gun violence in the United States during a Jan. 30 panel featuring various state and national activists and state Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck).
The event, entitled Gun Sense in America, seeks to analyze what officials consider an epidemic of gun violence amid unchanging federal gun control laws.
Local activist Aaron Watkins-Lopez will moderate the panel, which will consist of Schimel, Leah Gunn Barrett, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence; June Rubin, founding member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America; and Lois Schaffer, an author and activist.
The program is free of cost and open to the public.
Attendees will receive tips for reducing gun violence.
According to a September 2014 report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there were 160 active shooter incidents in America from 2000-13, an average of 11.4 per year. In those incidents, 486 people were killed and 557 were wounded. The term “active shooter,” according to the report, describes a shooting in progress whereupon law enforcement officials may be required to bypass protocol to respond to the incident.
According to FBI crime figures, 8,454 people were murdered with firearms in 2013, the latest year for which statistics are available.
The issue garnered mainstream media attention in 2012 following mass shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Newtown, Conn.
The Obama administration pushed for federal gun reforms, but a bill that included expanded background checks on firearm purchases was defeated in the Senate in April 2013.
The state Legislature in January 2013 approved a fast-tracked gun control law, commonly called the NY Safe Act, which has garnered a reputation as one of the strictest pieces of state legislation of its kind.
More recently, lawmakers from the Republican-controlled state Legislature have called for amendments to the Safe Act, but to little avail.
Each panelist scheduled to participate in the congregation’s event has personal ties to the issue.
Schimel, now in her fifth term representing the 16th state Assembly district, served on the board of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence for 20 years, while Rubin and Schaffer’s activism was inspired by their victimization by gun violence.
Rubin was robbed at gunpoint at a store she once owned in Miami, Fla., and helped form the “Mother’s Dream Quilt,” a national campaign for Moms Demand Action.
Shaffer, a Great Neck resident, is the author of the 2013 memoir “The Unthinkable,” which details the murder of her daughter Susie in St. Louis, Mo. in 2008.
