Letter Sent to MO House Speaker Todd Richardson and MO House Majority Floor Leader Rob Vescovo

April 3, 2018

The following letter was sent by U.S. mail to Speaker Todd Richardson and House Majority Leader Rob Vescovo.

On behalf of the 500 members of Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice, we ask that you do not bring House Bill 1936 to the floor.   Allowing concealed weapons on college campuses, churches, daycare facilities and bars will put more people at risk of being injured or killed.

As mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters, we are most concerned about keeping young people safe.  The executive director of the Missouri Council on Public Higher Education said guns would not make campuses safer (according to the public safety departments at the state’s 13 public four-year universities). Many of our members tell us allowing guns on campus would deter them from sending their family members to Missouri public universities.

Twenty-nine Missouri children and teens have been killed or injured by shootings in the first three months of 2018—an average of about 10 each month.  Thirty-seven Missouri children under the age of 18 were killed in 2017.  Enclosed are the names, ages and stories of these children.   https://womensvoicesraised.org/rememberingourchildren/

Gun violence has been identified as a public health epidemic by the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Both national organizations have called for common-sense laws that have been proven to reduce gun deaths and injuries in states which have enacted them.

In contrast, HB1936 would place our children at greater risk of being victims of gun violence.  As a father, you know the highest priority of parents is their children’s health and safety.  As leader of the House,   you can help protect all of Missouri’s children by not advancing HB1936.  Thank you.

Lise Bernstein. president  Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice

Barbara Harris and Mary Schuman,   Chairs, Campaign for Common Sense Gun Solutions