No, we are not suggesting that you do everything listed below! In fact, everything that could be done isn't listed below. We have, however, listed lots of things you could do so that you can choose the one or two that fit your interest, your schedule, and your life. The only thing you can really do wrong is to settle for being a spectator.

If you want more information about how to proceed with any of the ideas below - or with your own idea - call us. We have a lot of information about the resources available. For example, if you want your local pediatricians to hand out gun safety information to parents, we can tell you how to get copies of a brochure for just that purpose that the American Academy of Pediatric Physicians helped to design! We'll be glad to hear from you!

Safe Gun Ownership, Safe Gun Storage

Make Your Home Gun Safe
Make Your Community Streets Gun Safe
Keep Your Community Schools Gun Safe
Keep Your Workplace Gun Safe
Contact Your Elected Officials
Work With Your Local Media

Informed Decision Making
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Make your home gun safe.

• Take the time to realistically weigh the pros and cons of gun ownership for your family situation. Statistically, a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to injure or kill you or a family member than and intruder. So, whether to have a gun in your home is an important decision.
• If you own a gun, get instruction in how to safely use and store your gun.
• Talk to your children about guns. Make sure they know to treat any gun they run across as loaded and lethal, and to call an adult if they see a gun.
• Make sure your kids play in a gun-safe environment. Contact the parents of their friends to make sure that guns, if they are in the home, are safely locked up.

Make your community streets gun safe.

• Work with local neighbors to form "safe passages" for children going to and from school.
• Work within your neighborhood organization or local violence prevention programs (form one if you don't have one) to prevent gun violence.
• Work with the local police to start a community-policing program.
• Work with landscape architects to remove features of your neighborhood that could lead to violent encounters.
• Teach your children how to handle conflicts on the street.
• Campaign for gun violence prevention candidates.
• Work with local police to start a program to get illegal guns off the streets.
• Work with local officials to organize a gun buy-back program to get guns people don't really want anymore out of circulation.
• Talk to local doctors to see if they will distribute literature to their patients regarding the dangers of having a gun in the home. (MPPGV can help you get the literature you need.)
• Clean up your local park, improve lighting, and have neighbors form a watch to keep the area safe.

Keep your community schools gun safe.

• Participate in safety planning at your school to ensure a gun-free physical environment.
• Work with your school' parent group to hold a "stop gun violence" art exhibit or poster competition.
• Work with school officials to have school kids sign a pledge that they will never use a gun to resolve a dispute.
• Work with retirees to form a "safe passages" program for your local school.
• Work to keep extra-curricular activities going at your school; provide an alternative to violence.
• Help with fundraising to support safe school activities.
• Talk to your school officials about using the "STOP" anti-violence curriculum.
• Work with teachers to sponsor a school conflict resolution seminar.
• Post signs around your school promoting the "no guns" zone around the school.
• Involve local police in school safety training.

Keep your workplace gun safe.

• Encourage employees to be involved in youth activities and anti-violence programs run by local community organizations.
• Ask management to adopt a gun-free work place policy.
• Make sure the Employee Assistance program addresses violence prevention.
• Make sure all employees know there is a "0" tolerance for violence in the workplace.
• Create a fund in memory of a youth who died from gun violence in your workplace community. Get other businesses to contribute through the chamber. Use the funds to help your company's employees volunteer on a group project with a violence prevention group in the workplace community.

Contact Your Elected Officials.

One of the most important things you as a citizen can do to help stop gun violence is to let your elected officials know how you feel about the issues. All too often, citizen input is only received at election time, if then. As legislation is introduced and debated, your voiced opinion can have an important impact on the local, state, or national level.

You may contact your elected officials by phone, person to person by appointment or at community events, by letter, or through e-mail. E-mail is fast replacing snail mail as the medium for contacting political policymakers because it is cheaper, easier, and faster. Regular mail (or "snail mail") is slower, but it gives the elected official a piece of paper from a "real person" to carry into committee meetings to reinforce his arguments. Regardless of the method of communication you choose - the most important thing is to DO IT - and do it NOW. If your elected official hears from only 10 people on a particular issue, she/he feels he has been hit by a landslide. Your voice counts.

Let's review some basic principles about communicating with your representatives - they have not changed, regardless of the medium used.

• It is important to contact your political policymakers early in the process, before a bill is passed. Once a bad measure is passed into law, it is much more difficult to change the law.
• It is important to contact your elected officials often on the same issue. They face several decision-making points - they are asked to be sponsors of the bill before it is introduced, they vote in committee, and they vote again in the full session. They are under great pressure at each point and need your support.
• Get involved with a group of people of like interests and join in common action. There is strength in numbers - and more people to share the work!
• You can't catch flies with vinegar. A firm, friendly approach to communicating your opinion is far better than an angry letter. Be respectful.
• Get familiar with the legislative process. Ask for legislator or elected official for a "Citizens Guide" to State, Local or National government processes.
• Before contacting any elected official, make sure you understand the major points at issue. Tell the elected official that these points are important to you. If you are communicating about a particular bill, use its name and/or bill number.
• If the contact method you are using is the telephone or a personal visit, prepare a short draft of what you want to say ahead of time.
• Tell the elected official that you are a citizen and/or volunteer acting out of personal interest and concern. Always identify yourself. Being anonymous detracts from your credibility.
• If you want a response, don't forget to give your address and/or telephone number and/or e-mail address.
• Contact your elected official whether they agree or disagree with your perspective. Those who agree will be glad for your encouragement, while those who disagree need help changing their minds!

Be brief. A short, concise, to the point statement in your own words will beat out a dozen pages of statistics any day.

Work with your local media.

The media in our local communities have an important role to play in the gun violence debate. For example, television can contribute to the gun violence problem by fostering a frontier mentality through a barrage of programs that imply that use of a gun is an acceptable way to handle conflicts. Television may also be a source of family-oriented programming or public service announcements that can promote non-violent means of resolving conflict. Therefore, it is important to monitor the media and take an active role in providing feedback regarding the appropriateness of programming. The important thing is to pick a level of involvement you are comfortable with and DO SOMETHING! Here is a list of things you can do to impact the media messages in your community.

• Monitor your children's TV watching. Spend time with them watching and discussing television shows. Let them know when programs promote values that are contrary to yours as well as when they reflect your values. Declare programs that consistently promote gun violence as "off limits" and tell your kids why.
• Write letters to the OP-ED section of your local paper responding to news items involving gun violence. Point out how those everyday tragedies could have been prevented through responsible gun ownership such as keeping the gun unloaded and unlocked, or making a decision against gun ownership if appropriate.
• Form a group of people from your church, neighborhood, school, club or other places who are interested in promoting gun violence prevention. Together, write letters to the editor requesting more space be given to examining the issues surrounding gun violence.
• Have your group hold a press conference to announce your plans to stop gun violence in your community. Contact your local police and see if they can suggest an officer who could participate in your groups activities.
• Call in and participate on radio talk shows when gun violence prevention is the topic.
• Have your group write letters to the local TV stations deploring the excessive amount of violence that is being shown on particular shows. Vow not to watch them, and send a copy of your letters to program sponsors.
• Contact a gun violence prevention group for assistance on how to proceed in your local community. (Links to such groups in many states can be found on the Internet at www.mppgv.org under the "links" section.)
• Contact your local public access TV and see if they can provide help on producing a show on gun violence.
• Form a "phone tree" of people who will promise to write a letter in response to a particularly odious and violent program, advertisement, or article that condones irresponsible gun use.
• Ask media representative to participate in your group and give you advice on accessing the media.

• Consider the reasons you are a firearm owner or are thinking about becoming a firearm owner. For many people, becoming a gun owner is a matter of self-protection and home security. For others, guns are purchased for hunting or for sporting purposes such as skeet shooting or target practice. It is important to assess the likelihood that you would actually use your gun for these purposes and compare it to the risks associated with having a gun in your home.
• Think about the risks associated with the presence of a gun in your home or on your person. Does the gun make you or your family safer than you would be if you did not own a gun? Research shows that in urban areas, a gun in the home is over 40 times more likely to kill or injure a family member or friend than to be used in self-defense.
• Are there young children living in your home? Children are naturally curious and are usually aware of the presence of a gun hidden in the home. Accidental firearm injury and death in children often occur as a result of young children involved in play and experimentation with the gun. And, while it is important to talk to your children about gun safety, no amount of teaching or forbidding makes a youngster gun-safe.
• As a parent or caregiver, consider the difficulty in teaching children not to rely on a gun as a source of personal protection if you do. If you behave as though you believe that life is so dangerous that you need to carry or keep a gun, your children may conclude that life must be even more dangerous for them. If so, they may adopt mom's or dad's solution and get a gun for themselves. 
• Evaluate the amount of time that young children and adolescents are unsupervised in your home. Unsupervised time increases the opportunity for discovery and inappropriate use of a gun.
• Are there adolescents or older teens living in your home who may experiment and engage in gunplay or who may use a gun in anger or fear? Some teens may escalate interpersonal conflicts and use the gun for intimidation. Others may want to possess or use a gun for purposes of self-defense or to gain status among peers. Statistics tell us that the rate of homicide among teens is highly related to access to guns, particularly handguns. Keeping kids sage and on track during this time of growth and maturation is a difficult challenge at best for most parents. Think about how the presence of a gun in the home can increase the risk of injury or death for your teen. Death or life long disability is too big a punishment for a teen's disobedience or poor judgment.
• Are there members of your household who are experiencing emotional stress or despair? In the past decade we've seen an increase in gun-related suicide rates among adolescents and women. Gun-related suicide is on the increase among the elderly as well. Suicide attempts with firearms have a much higher success rate than when other methods are tried.
• Does anyone in your home engage in alcohol or drug use? If the answer is yes, you may want to consider an alternative method for self-protection or home security. When individuals are drinking alcohol or using drugs, the chance of arguments and disagreements escalating into violence is significantly increased. The presence of a gun increases the likelihood of an outcome that includes serious injury or death.
• Do other methods of self-protection or home security present reasonable alternatives for you? Non-lethal weapons of defense may include pepper sprays or personal noise alerts, such as sirens, alarms, or whistles. Invest in a home security system. Effective window and door locks can increase security at home. At the community level, community crime watch activities and increased police surveillance can be helpful in increasing safety.
• Are you able and willing to accept the 24 hour-a-day responsibility of gun ownership? Responsible gun ownership means learning and practicing safe gun handling behaviors that will help prevent needless injury or death. Responsible gun ownership includes keeping your gun out of the hands of those who deliberately or accidentally may misuse it by locking it up when not in use. If you are not willing to practice safe gun handling behaviors and storage, you are not ready to be a gun owner.

The decisions that individuals make about whether or not to be a gun owner have important consequences for their own health and well being and for that of their family, friends and community.

For that reason, if you are considering becoming a gun owner, seek information about the pros and cons of gun ownership before you make your decision to buy a gun. Take into consideration your particular needs, and circumstances, just as you would before making any other important decision impacting the well-being of you and your family.

Before making the decision to own a gun, evaluate both the need for the gun or firearm, and the risks associated with having a gun in the home. Consider how the detriments of owning a gun compare with the reasons you are considering owning a gun, and how those balance out for you and your family, your friends and your neighborhood.

** The above information on Informed Decision Making...  is available in a brochure through the Michigan Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence.

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