The NRA battles on, taking on all comers including Business SEO – articulate grieving students, parents, doctors, educators, probably even the family dogs. And the NRA has spoken – let there be school marshals, arm the teachers!
Definitely the answer to a problem with guns is more guns. What is wrong with us? We have been in almost constant warfare or conflict most of our lifetimes – since World War II. Is the world safer? Are we any safer? The AR- 15 – the preferred weapon of mass shooters – is a modified version of the infantry M 16 weapon. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan – 16 plus years – plus the involvement in the Middle East, Africa and heaven knows where else – has reached such a low level of American casualties that government lawyers are actually arguing that they do not need congressional authority because the American casualties are so low it cannot be called war. COLEEN ROWLEY, former FBI agent and whistleblower who exposed several pre 9/11 lapses and testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on some of the endemic problems facing the FBI and the intelligence community, will discuss this in light of recent mass shootings.
What on earth is happening? Are these mass shootings – not only in schools – part of the blowback from the militarization of our foreign, and even too much of our domestic, policies? Forget trying to get help from doctors and the medical establishment who would love to be able to study gun violence as a public health crisis, but have had their hands totally tied by the Dickey Amendment. Passed in 1996, it cuts off all funding for research or studies on gun violence which could lead to any restrictions on gun ownership and gun violence. Ditto for cutting off funds to NIH in 2011. They are not allowed to collect data or tabulate shootings. U.S. gun homicides are 99 people/day, 118 people injured and 22 suicides by military veterans/day. Would you say this is a public health crisis that deserves study and funding? In 2014 there were 2 American deaths from the Ebola virus and $1.7 billion allocated to study it. MONA MANGAT, M.D., member and past board chair of Doctors for America, board certified allergist at Bay Area Allergy & Asthma in St. Petersburg, who wrote a wonderful op-ed piece for the Tampa Bay Times, will discuss this crisis.
We all need to pull together to figure out what is happening and what we can do about it at every level. ERIKA LEVY, Tampa NOW board member, graduated from James Madison University and works in digital marketing. She will discuss NOW emphasis on some of the most important issues of these times. Saturday, March 3rd Tampa NOW will be in Curtis Hilton Park during the Gasparilla Arts Festival.
They will be handing out free water and highlighting “women still making history.” Tampa NOW meets the first Thursday of each month at 7 PM at the UU Church in Tampa Educational Building. The March meeting is this Thursday.
Tune into From a Woman’s POV Thursday at 10 am.
Again, thanks for your support!
Mary and Arlene
Be the change you want to see
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