 Kathy. Oh, there we are. All right. And you're on mute too. Hi, everybody. Sorry about that. Thanks, Crystal, for the introduction and good evening, everybody. I'm very pleased to be here this evening to participate in this discussion of such an important issue. Our speakers tonight will focus on particular aspects of what we're calling the intersection of guns and hate. My job tonight is to set the table for them. And I'd like to begin by offering a few observations. Gun violence has been a part of the American landscape ever since Europeans introduced guns to North America in the 17th century. But the scale and the scope of the problem has grown dramatic dramatically in recent decades. One broad indicator of this is the sheer number of guns that are in the US today. Consider this. In 1945, there were approximately 45 million guns in private ownership in the United States. In 2020, that number has risen to just under 400 million. That means our country today has more guns than it has people. Not surprisingly, as the number of guns has increased, so has the number of deaths involving guns. Gun deaths in the United States total in 2017 total nearly 40,000. But that number does not begin to reflect the number of times individuals and families were profoundly sometimes forever affected by incidents of gun violence. These incidents have left families and individuals physically broken and psychologically traumatized. Whatever else may be debatable about gun violence, its persistence in American life and its increasing damage to civil society are clear. But why may you ask, why is this a topic for the Arlington Human Rights Commission? Well, part of that answer is implicit in the title of tonight's program. It is the interplay of guns and hate. It's undeniable, for example, that gun violence and race have been closely related to the United States since its beginning. And even today, black Americans are twice as likely as white Americans to die from gun violence and 14 times more likely to be wounded. Gun violence alone reduces the life expectancy of black Americans by four years. In our country, gun violence is a racial justice issue. Gun violence is also closely linked to domestic violence. Over half of the women killed by an intimate partner are killed by a gun. Every month, an average of 53 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. And hate violence is also the motive, often the motive for violence against LGBTQ plus families, family members, our coworkers and neighbors. For example, the transgender homicide tractor found that of the 80 homicides that occurred in transgender and nonconforming people in the United States between 2017 and 2019, three fourths, 75% involved a gun. And then of course, there is the tragedy of suicide by gun. Our speakers earlier today noted that this is September is Suicide Prevention Month. And the figures from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that there were 38,300 deaths from guns in 2019, and of that number 23,000 were suicides. September is a good time to talk about gun violence. For these reasons, among many, your commissioners of the Arlington Human Rights Commission view gun violence as an acute threat to the free exercise of all human rights. You know, when he was drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson instructed us that human rights were self evident that they were unalienable. You may recall that he wrote, we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When Jefferson wrote the declaration, he was focused on the tyranny of the British monarchy as the greatest threat to basic rights at that time. But he also recognized that threats to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness comes in many forms and from many sources. This evening, your Arlington Human Rights Commission is focusing on gun violence through the lens of human rights, because we believe that without freedom from gun violence, the exercise of these unalienable rights is impossible. Thank you for coming tonight. Back to you, Crystal. Wow, Kathy, such amazing words there and so important and really highlights all the work that we're trying to be doing here on the AHRC. And you so clearly explained why this issue is so important for everyone concerned about human rights. You know, our next speaker is Arlington Police Chief Julie Flaherty, who has worked with the Arlington Police Department for over 25 years. And Chief Flaherty holds an MPA from Western and New England College out back where I'm from in Springfield. That's my neck of the woods. And a BS from Salem State College and has completed many specialized trainings, including the Leadership and Homeland Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. She will now share how guns impact Arlington and what the APD is doing to address this issue. Chief. Thank you so much, Crystal. Thank you for to the Human Rights Commission for inviting me here tonight to talk about this very important issue tonight. I think I'd like to start off and talk about the licensing firearms licensing process in the Commonwealth and in Arlington. As you're aware, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right to keep and bear arms. What that means is that people are allowed to have firearms in Massachusetts, but they must go through a special licensing process that we take very seriously at the Arlington Police Department. In Arlington, in order to apply for a firearms license or an FID card, a federal identification, a firearms identification card, one must take a safety course that is authorized by the state of Massachusetts where they learn an applicant will learn how to safely use and store a firearm, which is very important to us. We go through a process where an applicant will fill out an application. They'll have to come to the police station, make an appointment to meet with a firearms supervisor who will conduct an interview and in that interview will go through things such as ask questions such as history of any criminal activity and the reasons why somebody who lives or owns a business in Arlington would like to get a firearms license. After we do that initial interview we do a very in-depth background investigation and we look at things such as behavioral health history, criminal history, any involvement in felonies and some misdemeanors, and after that background is complete and we ensure that there are no statutory disqualifications, then we are able to issue an FID card or a firearms license to carry. If a chief of police in any community deems that an applicant is not suitable, then that applicant can be denied a license to carry. And when I talk about statutory disqualifications, that means if somebody has been convicted of felonies, if they have active restraining orders against them, or if they have certain misdemeanor charges. In Arlington, we have been very fortunate in that we have not seen a lot of gun violence in the past few years. We have very few firearms thefts from lawful owners' homes, and we really spend a lot of time with those who we grant firearms licenses to talking about safety and storage of firearms. We have had relatively few crimes involving firearms, and we don't have any firearms stores any longer in Arlington or ranges that would invite firearms owners into our community to purchase and practice with their firearms. So I'd like to take a minute and talk about some of the work that we do at public schools and our private schools in town. We have a school resource officer, Officer Brian White, who works very closely with the Arlington Public Schools, as well as a lot of the private schools in town, to address safety issues and concerns among the students, parents, and administration. Our SRO trains all of the APS staff and students in Alice, which is a proactive response to threats. Alice is an acronym for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, and evaluate. And it basically is an option-based training providing students and staff with knowledge and options for if a critical incident ever occurred. In addition to this training, our SRO spends a lot of time in schools talking to administrators, checking exterior doors, walking the hallways, and interacting with children. I'd also like to add that in each one of our patrol cars, we do have a detailed layout of each school on our laptops. In the event that a response was ever needed, we would have an accurate picture of where we need to respond inside the schools. We also do some work with a lot of the Houses of Worship in town. We've worked closely with a lot of different groups when they've called us in to assist with developing some security plans. And we work closely with many of the Houses of Worship to provide additional security during certain holidays and holy days if the religious leaders deem that they would like security there and they make that request. I'd also like to add that we're very grateful to partner with the Human Rights Commission in Allington and the Middlesex Sheriff's Department to host a firearms buyback program, which will be on October 3 of this year just coming up in a few weeks. And that will take place at the Winchester Country Club from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. And the purpose of that is to get unwanted firearms out of people's homes and to make the community safer by having safer homes. We've had, this will be our third firearms buyback. Our first one we yielded about 88 firearms with people brought in their unwanted firearms to us and received a gift card to a local business in exchange for turning that firearm in. The second one we hosted, which was approximately two years ago, we had, I want to say, 28 firearms turned in. And so that's 28 firearms that were taken out of homes that were unwanted. And even if we bring one firearm off the street and take it out of someone's home, I feel like it would be a complete success. And that's going to be October 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. And the location is the Winchester Country Club with the parking lot on Mystic Street. In the past, we've had these events at the DPW, but due to construction, we're moving the venue out. So I'm asking everybody to spread the word about the event. We're really looking forward to partnering with the Human Rights Commission in the Middlesex Sheriff's to host this. And I'll turn it back over to you, Crystal. Thank you so much, Chief. Thank you for those insights into the situation in Arlington and your department's efforts to address them. And remember, as questions occur, please put them in the Q&A and then we'll address those shortly. So we see your question. We're going to answer it live right here as part of the program. First, we want to hear from Angela Cristiana, who is a resident of Arlington and the deputy leader of the Massachusetts Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety in America. And she's going to address the types of gun violence that occur and how all of us can take actions to prevent this violence. Thank you so much, Crystal. And thank you to the Arlington Human Rights Commission for having me tonight. Again, my name is Angela Cristiana. I'm an Arlington resident and I'm a public school parent, and I'm a volunteer leader in Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I work with a group of volunteers, not just moms, where mothers and others to enact common sense reforms to address gun violence, to address the gun violence epidemic in this country. I got involved because like so many Americans, I was repeatedly shocked and outraged by mass shootings and school shootings. I was absolutely terrified for my children to go to public school, and I felt like I had to do something. So about five years ago, I started volunteering to be part of the solution. Through my involvement, I have learned that the problem is much, much more complex than what we see in the media. And I'm going to share my screen to share some slides. So first, just a little history on our organization. We Moms Demand Action was founded by a stay-at-home mom named Shannon Watts after the Newtown Elementary school shooting in 2012 and has grown to become a national movement. We operated under the umbrella of Every Town for Gun Safety, along with mayors against illegal guns, the Every Town Survivor Network, and Students Demand Action. Together, we make up the largest grassroots gun violence prevention organization in America with over 400,000 volunteers. Our mission is to end gun violence by advocating for common sense public safety measures. We are nonpartisan. We support the Second Amendment, and we are not against guns. We are against gun violence. In order to understand why we have a gun violence epidemic, it is incredibly important to know some of the facts and statistics, some of which have already been shared tonight, but I'm going to go over them again. Every Town for Gun Safety research and legal team helps ensure that we know the facts so that we as advocates can work strategically on evidence-based strategies to reduce gun violence. So I want to share just a little bit about the landscape of gun violence, maybe even dispel some misconceptions. As we know Arlington is not an island, and in 2020 we've seen such a rise in gun sales and in gun violence. We really have to take a proactive look and educate ourselves to protect our community. The sad fact is that more than 100 people are killed every single day from gun violence and more than 230 additionally are wounded. Last year in 2020 the numbers even grew to roughly around 112 per day. We're talking about around 40,000 gun deaths per year, which to give you a sense of scale is on par with motor vehicle accidents. Most of these tragedies never make the headlines such as deaths by gun suicide, domestic violence, hate crimes, and gun deaths in black and brown communities. Now we have all been affected by the collective trauma of mass shootings. Just say the word Las Vegas or Parkland or Newtown. It is even more heartbreaking and terrifying when it involves children and especially when it happens in the sanctity of schools. And as horrifying as mass shootings are, they actually account for less than 1% of deaths from gun violence. The other 99% of gun deaths don't make the headlines. In fact, suicide, for example, accounts for a roughly 60% of gun deaths, and this is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, so it's a good time to increase our awareness of the link between guns and suicide. Here are some other important facts about suicide. 85% of suicide attempts using a gun do result in death, making it a particularly lethal means. And access to a gun increases the risk of death by suicide three times. Common sense policies we support for limiting easy and immediate access to firearms such as extreme risk and waiting period laws, background checks on all gun sales and spreading awareness of secure firearms storage practices have all been proven to reduce suicide rates and save lives. Now let's go back to this chart again and look at homicides. Homicides account for the remaining 35% of gun deaths with new data coming out today from the FBI that there was nearly a 30% increase in homicides in 2020. We can expect that these percentages may shift a little, but gun homicides do disproportionately impact black and brown communities, particularly in historically underfunded neighborhoods within our cities. Another significant contributor to the homicide rate is domestic violence where every month more than 50 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner, and also hate crimes. The vast majority of hate crimes are directed against communities of color, religious minorities and LGBTQ people. As you can see in this graph by the FBI, 24% of hate crimes are motivated by race, 21% by religion and 19% by LGBTQ status. Now we are not the only place in the world where hate and bias exists. We are just making it far too easy for that hate to be enacted with a firearm. In an average year more than 10,300 hate crimes in the US involve a firearm that's more than 28 every day. The United States is not the only country with mental illness, with poverty, domestic violence or hate fueled ideologies, but our gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high income countries. I would say we don't have a crime problem. We have an access to firearms problem. So how do we address this problem? What works? I will talk about three strategies. The first is legislation, common sense, gun laws. We can see this from the data comparing different states in the country, which states have stronger laws, and that they have lower rates of gun violence. Second, investing in communities most affected, funding proven effective violence prevention and intervention programs in communities disproportionately impacted by gun violence. And finally, public education. Educating the public about responsible gun ownership and gun safety laws. In 2020, gun sales increased dramatically. The number of background checks in Massachusetts jumped by 24%. This means even more guns are in homes, and that's why it is increasingly urgent. We talk about safe storage and responsible ownership. So first off, how do we know that gun legislation works? We can look at Massachusetts. We are the lowest rate of gun death in the nation, and we have some of the strictest laws in the books. In fact, our laws are often used to set precedent for other states and federal laws. But there is still work to do in Massachusetts. We have nearly 250 deaths by gun violence per year, and that breaks down 57% suicide, 39% homicide. And in Massachusetts, black children and teens are seven times more likely than their white peers to die by guns. So what can you do, legislative wise? You can build a relationship with your state legislatures, state legislators, and let them know that gun violence prevention is important to you. Join us, join our allies to advocate for priority legislation and budget advocacy. Next, investing in communities. What sort of programs are being enacted? We invest in evidence-based strategies such as street outreach programs, group violence intervention, community-driven crime prevention through environmental design, hospital-based violence intervention programs, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Now, each one of those I could talk about a lot, but I don't have time, so I'm just going to list them there. What can you do? You can volunteer with community-based organizations. You can donate and you can support our work with them. We do our work in this area by partnering with community-led organizations who are already in those communities doing this work. And finally, public education about responsible gun ownership and storage and awareness of laws and programs that we can use to keep our families and communities safe. We have two education programs, Be Smart, which is our responsible gun ownership program. It is directed at adults because we believe that adults are the ones who are responsible to keep guns out of the hands of children and other people who should not have them. And our red flag program, also known as one thing you can do in that one thing you can do in a time of crisis is remove the guns temporarily. And that's an education program letting people know about our state red flag law. So what can you do to educate the public? You can talk to gun owners about responsible storage, keeping kids away from guns. You can ask when your child is going on a play date. You can ask about the presence of gun in a home. And you can learn about suicide risks and how to limit access to guns in times of crisis. To learn more about our programs, you can go to besmartforkids.org or onethingtodo.org. So if this intrigues you and you are interested in getting involved, actively involved in gun violence prevention, you can always text the word ready to the number 64433. That's to get involved with Mom's Demand Action. And I want to just say again, thank you so much. I look forward to the discussion and back over to you, Crystal. Thank you so much, Angela. Great information there. And certainly I love these steps that folks can take to get involved and get educated. So so important there for that call to action. Next up I want to introduce Greg Gibson. He works with fellow survivors as a volunteer for Mom's Demand Action in every town for gun safety. He has been a dedicated advocate for 30 years in this space. His bestselling book, Gone Boy, was first published in 1999 and remains in print today. He also administers the Gaylin Fund, a 501C3 charity dedicated to supporting survivors of gun violence. More information can be found at gonboy.com. Greg, take it away. Please share your thoughts. Thank you, Crystal. And thank you, Arlington Human Rights Commission. My sister was, my sister died from suicide with a gun in 1978. It was a, she was a schizophrenic and her disease was unbearable and she was able to go to a pawn shop by a cheap gun. A bad shopping decision that she'd still be able to make in many states in the union today. In 1992, my son Galen was killed in a school shooting at Simon's Rock College in the Berkshires. His killer was able to obtain his weapon because of a loophole in Massachusetts laws that deemed that someone from out of state only has to comply with the laws of their own state to be able to buy a weapon. So I was able to buy a gun for this underage person in Massachusetts was able to buy the gun, which he used to kill my son and another teacher and wound for other people. So I have some familiarity stretching out over a long period of time with this problem. In a way, you could say, I've spent 40 some years watching people be killed with guns and nothing happening. We know that good gun laws save lives. Angel has talked to you about the facts in Massachusetts and it's very clear, good gun laws save lives. I think we're all familiar with hate personally and acted on us by others acted on others by others. But I think what what I want to say primarily that in this conversation is that in the context of what we're talking about here. Guns are only the delivery system for the consequences of 300 years of bad history in our country. Racism, injustice, inequality. You all know you all know the answers. So I would say that if we're having this discussion tonight. In terms of the intersection of guns and hate, our full attention should be on the causes of hatred. Sure, we can try to get the guns out of the hands of people who hate, but who are these people black people are killed at a vastly greater rate than white kids. They're actually killed by black people and these are not hate crime. If there's hate crimes. It would be mass shootings. And as we've already learned tonight, mass shootings account for less than one half of 1% of all gun deaths. Suicide is the major cause. Suicide's cause is self hate. Certainly we need to look at that. But the underlying causes mental illness. It's not the gun. I don't know how else to say this, I've been advocating against gun violence for more than 30 years. And if our efforts were successful. We'd be reducing the number of guns in this country, we'd be reducing gun violence in this country. But that's not happening. In 1978 when my sister died, there were probably, I don't know, 100 million guns in this country. Now as we've learned, there are over 400 million guns in this country and friends, they're not going away. So what we need to do, I'm sorry to say this, but it's my observation over 30 years is what we need to do is learn how to live with these guns. Part of that involves legislation, but in terms of hate and the intersection of guns, we have to go right to hate, we have to go right to the sources of hate, we have to go to mental illness, we have to go to cultural social causes. I'm sure I could talk for a long more time. But basically that's all I've got to say the intersection of hate and guns is all about hate. The guns are just the delivery system. Thank you. Thank you, Greg, for your powerful testimony. And you're so right. We need action at this point and to figure out a way to live with these guns in our society. We're now going to ask our panel a few questions from the Commission and then take questions from that Q&A box. We have a couple there already. And remember, you can still add your questions if you like and have them answered live by our panel. So the first question I want to ask, and any of you can go ahead and start and take this, is gun violence and hate can seem to be overwhelming. So many different forms, so much hate. What are some practical, simple steps someone in Arlington can take to start to address this, either for people who are gun owners and for those who are not. And any of you all can go ahead and take this question and go ahead. Yes, turn on your video and your audio too, as you answer. Hi, Crystal. So I think the first big step is acknowledging that these things are happening, that these hate crimes are happening and that we need to do better and having these discussions to raise awareness. Gun owners need to follow state regulations and make sure that they're securing their firearms properly. And that they're not ending up in the hands of people that they shouldn't and they're not ending up in the hands of children. We also need to have open conversations with our kids, with our children and discuss the dangers of firearms and talk about if you see something say something. If you have information about firearms, if you if a child goes to a friend's house and sees an unsecured firearm that that child needs to be able to go back to their parents and talk about that and make sure that they're communicating with their parents. Greg or Angela, yes. I want to agree with what the chief just said and just to weave in what Greg was saying about peace. I think children can really take in lessons about peace at a young age. And I would really highly recommend the resources of the Lewis D Brown Peace Institute in Boston, and some of their programs for children. And when it comes down to firearms, however, I believe the responsibility is on the adults to ensure that anyone who is not cognitively developed enough to bear the full responsibility does not have any access. Let's not forget about the American rescue program, either. We have a, as Angela calls it, a generational opportunity to provide funding for the very things that will improve mental health, improve community access, reduce the causes of gun violence at the beginning. I urge you all, if you want to do something, contact your legislators and tell them that we need 5% of this $250 million that's supposed to be slated for Massachusetts to be devoted to exactly those things. Let's make our voices strong and clear here. We need that money to improve this problem. Thank you for speaking up for that, Greg. Let me, since I'm the numbers person tonight, let me just make a tiny edit there. It's actually over 4 billion that's coming into Massachusetts. 5% of that would be around 250 million that we could put towards community violence prevention and intervention programs and I'm talking about programs that are community led community driven serving the most vulnerable gun violence affected in the state and all of us in Arlington, anywhere in Massachusetts, but I'm calling on allies in Arlington to step up and advocate for communities who need this funding. Talk to your representatives. In fact, one of the heads of the committees is our own Senator, Senator Cindy Friedman. I'm sure she would welcome your calls to advocate for the 5% towards violence prevention funding. And, you know, Angela, you touched upon this briefly, but how should the issue of hate crimes and God's be addressed with children appropriately and all of you can really answer this. Carefully. Carefully. I mean, I trust our educators to handle it well. You know, and I, again, I would echo back to Greg, we need to address hate by teaching peace by teaching, you know, empathy. And that's something children have naturally and I think hate is learned, and we can address that at an early age. You know, there's parental example as well. We can talk and talk and talk, but anybody who's got kids knows the percentage of the stuff that actually goes in and sticks. But what our kids do is watch how we behave. We can model behaviors for our children that are more effective than any words we could possibly tell them. I echo with Greg and Angela say we have to be able to have these open communication and discussions with our children and make sure that they have the basis of knowledge to speak up and to ask any questions that they have about these topics. Absolutely. And how should be, excuse me, what resources would you all point folks to specifically in talking to kids about this kind of stuff? I know, Angela, you mentioned the Lewis, the Lewis B Brown Institute is Gregor or chief laity. Are there any that you found that were important or key a good tool. My friends in Newtown have established the whole curriculum of trainings nationwide about teaching kids how to resolve conflicts without resorting to levels of violence. And also, and this is equally important teaching kids to be aware of the kids around them to be sensitive to the mental condition of their peers. There, there are actual examples of potential mass shootings that have been stopped because of this educational program. It's, oh, geez, I'm just blanking on the name of this. Just, you can just Google Newtown or Sandy book and and find out the name of this wonderful program run by my friend Mark Barton nationwide teaching children. There are probably dozens of programs like this and they're all effective. We just have to pay attention to them and be sure to institute them. And one of our commissioners, Neoka Kerry is dropping some links in the chat as we speak. So please check those out folks who are for listening review. And so this question is for the chief, what can, you know, regular person do to support the gun buyback program that is happening. It, you know, involving the the APD and maybe tell folks a little bit about it who may not be aware it's happening. That's a great question. Crystal, thank you. Again, this event is being held on October 2 from 9am to 3pm at the Winchester Country Club parking lot, which is in Allington on Mystic Street. And this is an event where people can bring in their unwanted firearms no questions asked. And we will in exchange for the firearm, give a gift card to one of our local businesses for that person to use. So again, this is our third event we've taken in over 100 firearms from hosting these events and the goal is to have a safer homes for people in our community. If somebody is interested in participating. We're asking people to spread the word about the event. So people in the community know about it. I know that we've been using our social media, as well as the Human Rights Commission have. So if you're interested in contributing, you can reach out to our partners at the Calgary Church or the PAKAP Congregational Church, who have been doing fundraising for the event. Thank you, Chief. And now let's go ahead and take some questions from our attendees. One Valerie wants to know how many registered guns are there in Arlington. So unfortunately, we don't have that information. The Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau is the keeper of records for the Commonwealth for all registered firearms. I can say that we probably have several thousand people in Arlington who have firearms licenses, a firearms license is valid for six years at the end of those six years. Someone could reapply to extend their firearms license, and we have anywhere between 214 appointments each year depending on the year for either new licenses or renewals. So we don't have information on how many firearms are registered, but we do keep track of who is registered in Arlington. So this question would be for the whole panel from Mark. How will education help? He says that most people who listen to education have already been educated by now, so how will educating more folks help? Well, I think we're talking about, we're not talking about changing somebody's mind on their, their political views. We're talking about common sense, we're talking about educating people about safe storage. You know, for example, a firearm owner, you know, despite the best efforts of our wonderful Chief of Police and her team may not realize that having a firearm in your home increases the risk of teen suicide. And they may just need a little reminder from our program, you know, similar to ours. There are many programs like this, but our B-Smart program educates people about the risks of having a firearm in your home. You know, for children, for teens, for people who are in a mental health crisis. So that's the kind of education we're talking about. And also educating people about the resources that are available to them, letting them know which community-based organizations are doing work, allowing them of mental health resources when it's called for, and letting them know about laws that they can enact in times of crisis to remove guns from somebody who may even want the gun removed. They may be asking, take the guns out of my home. I'm not safe with my own, with my guns. How can we do that? There's a legal process that's a temporary removal. The Chief could probably tell you a little bit more about how that works. But that's the kind of education we're talking about. Greg, would you like to add, or Chief? Yeah, would you like to add anything to that? I totally agree with Angela. In fact, I think MOMS runs a program to help educate people about the red flag law, how it's used, and what its, you know, applications might be. So this is not changing anybody's hearts and minds. It's just about giving somebody another resource if a friend or a close relative or a family member or a loved one is in crisis. It just gives them another tool to perhaps avert a terrible situation. This is not changing anyone's politics. This is not changing anyone's basic beliefs. It's just a tool. And you know, you've got to learn how to use a drill. You've got to learn how to use a saw. You can learn how to use the system also to make the safer community that we all can live in. So I can touch briefly on extreme risk laws. If a person is in some type of crisis and considering harming themselves or others, family members or members of law enforcement can petition the court for a temporary order to remove access to firearms. Access to firearms in Massachusetts. I think that's a great law. I think that that I've seen law enforcement agencies take advantage of this law before. And as far as education, I don't think you can ever get enough education. I don't think talking about firearms laws and hate hurts at all. I think the more we talk about it, the more we raise awareness, it can only benefit people in our community. So this question is from Nancy and she asked, we have statistics for gun violence that has occurred. Are there statistics for gun violence that was stopped before it happened by the police? What is the rate of successfully disrupted attempts at gun violence versus actual gun violence? I don't even know if that's tracked at all. The NRA has a column in their monthly magazine American Rifleman that reports to give examples of gun owning citizens foiling crimes with their guns. What it doesn't mention is that you could shoot someone with the most justifiable reason and the rest of your life would be a train wreck because the legal implications. It's really, really not a good idea to shoot people at all. So I don't think there's, I don't think there are, Chief, do you know if there are any official statistics kept? I've never heard of saying that. I'm not aware of any official statistics kept on that. Yeah. And Greg, I would just add, I know I can hear this in your tone, but for people who may not know you. Unfortunately, those things that the NRA is posting in their bulletin are often misinformation. They are fabricated or exaggerated. Somebody flashes their firearm on their belt loop and that was a diverted crime. Those statistics have been, you know, widely debunked and, you know, so it's, you know, I would look at that with a big, big skeptics skeptical eye. It's all about gun sales. Let us not forget. Yeah. Well, Greg's the expert to talk about that. I have another question here. Does it matter what we do here in Massachusetts if guns are coming in from states like Maine and New Hampshire? This is a terrible problem. It's a terrible problem in Chicago, which has some of the best gun laws in the country, but you can drive 20 minutes to Indiana, bring back whatever you want. This is part of my frustration after 30 years that this advocacy just against guns isn't really getting to the core of the problem here. We can work with other states. We can try to get other states to adopt our laws, which will certainly make them safer, but we're not going to get rid of guns and we're not going to get rid of guns in inner cities. It's all we can do is try to reduce, you know, in the inner city when somebody gets shot, what they want to know, not who did it, not why. Like in the suburbs, that's what we'd ask in the city. They ask, where did that gun come from? Because that's the key. It's a very discouraging situation. Yeah, and I would just add it's really, you know, does it matter what we do in Massachusetts? I would say it matters to the one family whose life is saved. It matters to the individuals. You know, our laws have given us the safest state in the country. And yeah, it's a terrible situation. It's called the iron pipeline. Guns coming in being trafficked in from other states. It's a terrible situation, but imagine if we didn't have our laws. How much worse the situation might be? And I see Massachusetts as a leader and we can continue to be a leader and a model for the rest of the country. How can you not look at Massachusetts a an urban industrialized state that has several gun manufacturers in it? How can you not look at that and see a model for gun legislation with our low gun death rate? So yeah, I think it matters. It's not perfect. There's no perfect answer here. This is a very multi-dimensional issue that has to be addressed in many, many ways. And I would love to see for my family, my community, the communities I care about, I would love to see an interstate compact to address the iron pipeline coming from our neighboring states. Catherine just posted a question saying, when I was in college, I wrote a bus from Connecticut to DC to attend the Million Mom March. Sometimes I feel like the more we try to get rid of gun violence, the more people buy guns. I refuse to give up hope, but I wonder if my perception is accurate or not, and if it is, what we can do differently to create a different outcome? I want to give the opportunity to somebody else because I feel like I'm doing a lot of talking, but I'm happy to. Okay, so yeah, so I know it seems like deja vu, right? Like it's the same, nothing's changing, but it has changed. It has changed. Organizations like Every Town for Gun Safety and Mom's to Man Action, the Giffords organization, the Sandy Hook organizations, we have raised the profile of gun violence prevention in this country. It is now a voting issue. This is now something people care about. 85% of people in America agree gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree that we need a background check on every single gun sale. Now, that is not the case in a lot of states. In a lot of states, you can purchase firearms from a non-licensed firearm dealer legally and have no background check whatsoever. So walk in, purchase a firearm, no background check whatsoever. This is legal in many, many states, and it is a recipe for the gun violence that's happening in our country, along with many other factors. Listen, I'm not saying it's all about background checks or all about any single law. There is, like I said, it's multi-dimensional, but listen, there are 400,000 volunteers like me. Listen, I'm just a mom. I'm just an Arlington mom. I'm not a gun expert. I learned all this stuff over the years I've had this great training from Every Town for Gun Safety. I'm nobody special, but I care about protecting our communities from gun violence, Arlington and beyond, and anybody can take action. We have, you know, it's a voting issue. It's an electoral issue now. We are putting people in office who are gun-sense champions. That is our new, that's our new big thing. Either you change the laws or we change you. You lose your seat if you are not a gun-sense champion. And we have the political power to do that and the, you know, the voting power. So, you know, I understand it is easy to be discouraged. It's tempting to feel powerless, but we are not powerless and we can do hard things. In line with that, Angela, I'd like to remind everybody of something President Obama said, I think in the third year of his second term, somebody asked him roughly the same question, what can we do about this with our, and he said, more or less, what you have to do for this cycle and as many cycles as is going to take to change things is become a single issue voter because that's what they do. And until we get that message, until we get that commitment, until we learn to pay attention to the problem in a way that just doesn't involve our own self-absorption or whatever that. Heck is going on in this country right now. If we were single issue voters, I think we could solve this problem immediately because look at the demographics. 80% of Americans think it's a good idea, but they're distracted. They want to buy a Ford. They want to buy a television. They're, oh, they can remortise their house. Great. Single issue voters. That's just one suggestion by a former president of the United States, as he says, because that's what they do. You want to take them on, maybe you've got to use some of their methods. Chief, I do want, and I want you to answer that question too, but I would also like you to answer in terms of the law enforcement impact when we're talking about the flow of guns from other states and how that impacts what you all do in terms of public safety, but also, you know, the last question. Right, so I'll just comment on the last question. I do agree with the observations of that, that poster, and I feel here in Allington, it has a lot to do with the political climate. If people think they're going to lose their right to bear arms or carry firearms or purchase firearms, then we see an increase in people in the community who want to come in and get their license to carry. So I do agree with that. And what can we do? Just keep, continue to move forward and do all of the things that we've been doing to increase safety and increase education. As far as law enforcement goes, we are fortunate that we do have some of the strongest gun laws in the country, second to, I'd say, California. And what we can do with law enforcement is just continue to enforce the laws and continue to work with our prosecutors to make sure that these gun crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent. How can we, because we talked about the political argument, we know that this is a hot button issue and has been for a very long time. How can we balance this right to own guns with safety in the US? And I think, Greg, you touched upon this briefly when you, when you mentioned that, you know, we have to live with guns. We can't just get rid of the guns because folks are going to want to own guns. So how do we make, how do we balance this right to own guns with safety in the US? You know, I think a lot of this is a cultural issue. We've talked about the politics of it and we've talked about the economics of it and the social inequities and all of this. But you know, at some point, we have to come around to a place where walking around with an AR-15 is just not a cool thing to do, culturally. Right now, I mean, come on, look at Clint Eastwood, look at Rambo, look at all, look how we celebrate the gun, look how we, you can't, you can't watch TV for an hour without watching somebody get shot. It's just commonplace. Well, in that environment, why shouldn't it be commonplace in American culture? I'm not suggesting that we take control of the media or anything like this. I'm just saying that it's possible that as generations evolve, as my children teach my grandchildren and those grandchildren teach their children, it may be that we can get to a place where walking around with guns just isn't cool. And then guns become what they were to the NRA in the 1800s. They're just, you know, they're a sporting implement. You use them to hunt, you use them to target shoot. Maybe you use them to protect yourself. I don't know. I sure wouldn't. I mean, I'm a gun owner and believe me, I don't think it's a very good idea at all to try to use a gun to protect yourself. But I think possibly the answer to that might be immediately, no, but ultimately generationally, this is a cultural issue that we can adjust, that we can address by how we relate to our children, how we relate to our grandchildren, all of that. Chief or Angela, would you like to weigh in here how we balance the right to own guns with safety in the U.S.? Who's getting killed in the U.S.? 60% are suicides? And what kind of safety does that involve? Well, first of all, if someone's in crisis, you certainly don't want them to have access to a gun, do you? That's something we might be able to do something about. All these shootings that happen in the inner cities all happen within very small areas where the rule of law has been replaced by some kind of vigilante cowboy kind of justice. He killed my buddy. I'm going to kill him. That kind of thing. There's a lot we could do about that as well with the right resources, with the right attention. Go ahead, Angela. Well, I don't know if this might be straying a little too far into political territory, but listen, nothing that the organization I'm representing advocates for infringes on rights. That's I truly believe that we are all about safety and common sense measures, prevention, root causes. But we need to get to a place in this country where we agree on facts. And if we can't agree on the facts of what works to prevent gun violence, then, you know, that's a big problem. So, I mean, I, you know, that's that's a whole other topic, but, you know, We can't even agree on getting shots for the virus. What are we going to do about that? That's a big ask, Angela. I know, I know. But, you know, I'm, you know, we're talking cultural here, you know, and, you know, culturally, we need to figure out how we can agree on facts again. Absolutely. Great. Because all these good ideas are fact based evidence based, aren't they? Do we know if neighboring towns work with Arlington on gun safety programs and Chief, I know that the, the gun buyback event is happening in Winchester. What kind of cooperation do you see? Right. So, in the past several years, we've partnered with the Middlesex Sheriff's Department. They come and assist us during the event and after the event. This year, we've also invited the Winchester Police Department, seeing that it's close. It's the event is bordering on their town. So they'll also come in and help us help us out. And again, we've been working with a lot of the face faith organizations as well as the Human Rights Commission, as far as outside of town. Through the Middlesex Sheriff's Department, when we have these events, we'll try to do it in conjunction with other cities and towns. So if we had a gun buyback event on Saturday on Sunday, we would see one in Cambridge on the following week when we weekend, we'd see one in Somerville. So we try to keep them all together and work in partnership with all of these other agencies. Right. And you know, it's back to school time. Although we had an 81 degree day, which was very exciting. But what is the most important thing that school should be doing on this particular issue? Greg or Angela. Well, Chief, can you tell us about Alice a little more because I know that's what we do in our school district. Yeah, so in Ellington, our staff, our administrators, our teachers and our students are all trained in Alice drills. We have a school resource officer who works with Cindy sharding current from the school department and we do drills twice a year. We also have had all of our police officers trained in active shooter response training in conjunction with the FBI. So we do a lot of training. We have a lot of workshops with the school resource officer. We also have an in house clinician that works for the police department that will accompany the school resource officer to schools and talk to children who are struggling with having these conversations. So we do do a lot of work in the schools and with our Alice program. I would just add to that. We need to really rely on proven effective strategies to keep guns out of schools. This means knowing the warning signs, identifying risks for violent behavior. And again, this comes down to addressing the mental health of our children and teens. And I know that that's a big issue right now. We're all back in the classroom now after, you know, 18 months of some level of being at home and mental health is a really big challenge for a lot of families right now. So I can't, I can't overemphasize how important that is to be addressed. But I also just wanted to say we can't, you know, let risky ideas like arming teachers dominate this debate on school safety either that's that's that's an unproven and very dangerous idea. And, you know, I'm sure the chief could speak to this but like if you're not trained, if you are not a trained gun operator, how can you, you know, address a threat in a school. So that's, I think it's really important that we focus on mental health, focus on simple things like making sure the doors lock at the school and access is controlled in in the school and then, you know, if you see something if you hear something say something addressing those those potentially risky scenarios. And we got a couple of questions around the Alice drills in school. An anonymous attendee wanted to know what should parents do if their children are scared after attending an Alice Alice drill and how do we know that they're effective these drills. Right, so Alice drills can be traumatic for some children because it is the scary event and we try to make it is easy and as as less scary as possible for the students. We do have police officers on site, our mental health clinician on site to talk to the students who are feeling uneasy. After they do the drills, and parents can always reach out to the school resource officer to their teacher or the principal at the school and we can certainly have these discussions in private with the students to make them feel a little more easy about why we're having them. And as far as effectiveness. We've looked at best practices throughout the country and we've learned from from shooting events in the country and we've taken those best practices and put them into what we're teaching our students now with Alice drills. Great. And any last questions for folks for our panel here today before we wrap up for the evening. Great. Well, I want to thank you all for joining us tonight. Angela Christiana from mom's demand action. Greg Gibson, a longtime advocate in this space and Arlington Police Chief Julie flair T thank you so much for joining us. This is such an important topic and lots to unpack here certainly more than we can do on a weeknight. But we know that this is just the start of a conversation and one that will continue in our community and hopefully in your homes. Please share what you've learned with your family and friends and consider steps. You can take to make our community safer. I'm Crystal Haynes with the Arlington Human Rights Commission go to Arlington human rights.org for more information and our Facebook page for more information as well and our YouTube page in case you missed any part of tonight's discussion. Thank you so much and have a very safe night.