*The following cover letter and op-ed were written as final deliverables for a semester-long nonprofit advocacy campaign project for my PA 598 graduate course in spring 2021. My group consisted of three team members—myself, Alisha Amin, and Jannat Dola. The role I held within our group included writing this cover letter and op-ed.
Cover Letter
Our group selected to write an op-ed, targeting The News & Observer, because a substantial component and primary strategy of our mission is education and spreading awareness around gun violence. In 1996, The News & Observer won a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Therefore, this media outlet allows us to disseminate pertinent information to the public related to gun violence prevention, as well as focus on our coalition-building efforts with MomsRising and the NC Council of Churches. We hope that an op-ed will extend our outreach more broadly, given that our capacity is still relatively low for social media engagement—an area we hope to improve in the coming years. MomsRising, an organization we intend to partner with, has 68.7K followers on Twitter, whereas our 501(c)(3) comparatively has 1,150 followers and our 501(c)(4)—NCGV Action Fund—76 followers on Twitter. The specific topic we are concerned with is safe storage of firearms to prevent gun violence of vulnerable groups, such as children or those affected by mental illness. An example of our recent community engagement through press coverage is this podcast radio interview from February 8, 2021: “North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Researcher Sara Smith on gun violence as a public health epidemic.”
Opinion: NC should increase its safe storage of firearms to keep guns out of vulnerable hands
By North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Staff
May 3, 2021
The United States has a severe problem with gun violence, and it is only getting worse. The year 2019 in North Carolina saw 1,397 gun deaths, 116 of which involved children and teens (ages 0-19), according to The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. Additionally, 56 percent of these gun deaths were suicides. Despite a federal law in place, the state of North Carolina does not mandate a locking device with the sale of a firearm. North Carolina must do better in protecting its residents by increasing child access prevention and implementing safe storage requirements for gun owners. Safe storage encompasses three parts: guns in the home are unloaded, locked, and stored apart from ammunition. Giffords Law Center outlines that current state law in North Carolina dictates criminal liability in certain instances where a minor accesses a firearm and has it in public or uses it, but we need even stronger barriers to entry. Gun access should not even remotely be on the radar of our youth.
In 2020, our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, North Carolinians Against Gun Violence (NCGV), released the Safe North Carolina Report 2020 in order to address these concerns and emphasize that “every firearm injury and death is preventable.” NCGV does not seek to enforce rigid gun control; rather, we argue that gun violence is a public health crisis and must be treated as such. The call for these safe storage policies extends far beyond partisan politics. We are asking for an honest assessment of the shortcomings of public safety, protection, and human dignity within our state.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. The Harvard Injury Control Research Center’s Means Matter Campaign identifies access to firearms as a risk factor for suicide and firearms discharged in youth suicide often are the possession of the parents. Between 2008 and 2017, the youth suicide rate almost doubled in North Carolina, according to North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics data as reported in the North Carolina Child Health Report Card 2019.
Our bottom line: We do not have to choose to live this way. Our country does not have to top the charts in terms of mass shootings worldwide. We can mitigate the risks of firearms falling into unauthorized or vulnerable hands, especially children and those suffering from mental distress or illness. President Biden has declared gun violence in the U.S. “an epidemic,” since the shootings this year in Georgia and Colorado. NCGV’s 2021 legislative agenda regarding gun violence prevention lays out our plan forward, featuring a state-wide safe firearm storage campaign. Funding for this campaign would allow for education and the distribution of free gun locks. Our partner, the NC Council of Churches, stands behind our objectives to reduce gun violence in North Carolina. Will you join us in the fight?
North Carolinians Against Gun Violence (NCGV) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to gun violence prevention through education, enactment and enforcement. Learn more here.