Gun Violence Prevention Toolkit

TOOLKIT Contents

A step by step gun violence prevention toolkit to give advocates everything needed to start a gun violence prevention movement in their community.

My name is Harry, and I am Co-founder and Co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. I have been a Presbyterian pastor since 1984 and currently serve the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Fe. I became involved in gun violence prevention with one question posed in 2010 at a Friday lunch of the City Club of Cleveland. It was a presentation on Conceal Carry in Ohio and my wife and I sat at a table of NRA folks and she asked them “If you could save a life, would you give up your gun?” “No, Ma’am,” one man answered right away who told us he owned an automatic assault weapon, “We have our Second Amendment Rights.” “What about saving ten lives?” my wife countered. “No Ma’am.” It went on. 100 lives? No, Ma’am. 1,000 lives? No, Ma’am. 10,000 lives? What was even more maddening was to witness at the conclusion of the presentation a long line of men yelling at the woman who had spoken against concealed carry. When we finally were able to reach her, we introduced ourselves and asked what we could do to help…

In 2013, when we first created New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, many of us met at a church and, for the most part, were strangers to each other. MoveOn.org had issued a “call to action” throughout the country during the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. It was completely by chance that most of us heard about the meeting. As for me, a friend knew that I had spent the last three weeks working by myself on the issue of gun violence prevention and told me about the gathering.

I remember the meeting well. There were about 30 of us in attendance. We were all eager to get to work. But we were completely confused as to how we could or should move forward…

For the first eight months, we worked diligently on public outreach and we still do. It was usually one step forward and two steps back. So many calls were not returned. So many people refused to meet with us, plenty because they wrongly believed that any gun violence prevention effort was an attack on Second Amendment rights. It was a real eye-opener the first time we were given permission to hand out free gun locks at a community health fair in rural Northern New Mexico…

Promoting gun safety has many advantages. A gun safety program keeps communities safer from gun violence, raises awareness, and helps promote your nonprofit around your state.

In our early years, gun safety was one of the few ways we could approach communities about gun violence prevention. We were truly shocked at the extremist rhetoric that existed about safe gun storage in New Mexico. The very presence of our table with free gun locks challenged communities in New Mexico to question their beliefs about gun safety. It gave us an opportunity to have a civil discussion with naysayers at these events. We were alarmed at how many parents admitted to not locking up their guns…

In 2016, a woman named Kira Jones called us and asked if we would meet her for a cup of coffee to discuss creating a gun buyback program in New Mexico. We agreed to the coffee, but to be honest, we were not that interested. We, like many, were under the incorrect assumption that gun buybacks were ineffective and just a “feel-good” effort. We explained to Kira that we did not do gun buybacks. She asked if she could show us pictures from an Albuquerque, New Mexico gun buyback in which she had recently participated. At the buyback, over 400 working guns were taken off the streets. We saw piles and piles of semi-automatic handguns, rifles, and even assault weapons. Convinced, I laughed confessed to her that I came to the meeting uninterested and then said, “We do gun buybacks now”. From that day, with much trial and error and a lot of hard work, we have eventually built what is now known as the Guns to Gardens buyback program. To date, we have dismantled over 1500 firearms through 16 New Mexico gun buybacks…

New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence began working with youth in our first year. As previously mentioned, it became clear that schools were one of the best ways to enter a community for working on gun violence prevention. It is important to build relationships with principals, school social workers, school boards, and the educators who advise student leadership clubs. We began by implementing the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence and then expanded by adding other gun violence prevention activities. Many of these activities are art based…

We have designed this pillar differently as it includes an actual curriculum for the project. We did this so that organizations that have never attempted an art project of this size with youth will have everything they need. We also designed it so that you will have all the necessary information to pull from if you are looking for grant funding or to give to the school or organization that you are partnering with on the mural. Feel free to copy and paste anything you need…

Our first piece of legislation in New Mexico was to close the gun show loophole. We learned during that first legislative session that it was vital for us to build relationships throughout the state if we wanted to pass any bills. We immediately began creating and implementing programs in a broad range of communities. We made sure to invite the elected officials, when appropriate, to events and to send out press releases with regularity. The more you can get the name of your organization broadcast throughout the state, the easier it will be to establish a presence in the legislature and to gain the trust of elected officials…

Gun Violence Prevention TOOLKIT

TOOLKIT Contents

A step by step gun violence prevention toolkit to give advocates everything needed to start a gun violence prevention movement in their community.

Gun Violence
Prevention TOOLKIT