Describing it as a "call for ideas" in the fight against gun violence, Newtown-based advocacy group Sandy Hook Promise launched a new initiative to encourage proposals from leading minds on how to make communities safer through technological innovation.
That could include anything from electronic firing pins and GPS trackers on guns to emergency response systems in schools, the organization says."While legislative efforts are very important and we continue to support those efforts, we also believe that the solution cannot be passing new laws alone and that there are other effective solutions that don’t involve Washington," said the release from Sandy Hook Promise on their website. "We each have a role to play in making our families and communities safer."
Sandy Hook Promise unveiled the initiative in San Francisco Thursday in a conference with top venture capitalists and other investors, according to CBS Local San Francisco.
As one part of the initiative, the group will award prizes to the most promising proposals for "ideas and prototypes" to counter gun violence through technology, partnered with a nationwide call for ideas from enterpreneurs. Sandy Hook Promise says a group of "venture capitalists and angel investors" are ready to fund projects.
The group, formed in the wake of the 12/14 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, has previously sought to rally the public to make the online "Sandy Hook Promise," which asks supporters to "honor the 26 lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School." In February, the group's leaders told Patch they hoped this online base would give them the numbers necessary to make the kind of social change necessary to end gun violence in America.
"We'll have these folks when legislation is ready to go through," co-founder Tim Makris told Patch. "We'll say, 'Hey, we're going to have a big push. Please call your congressman and woman to help us. We need you to get the word out and start spreading this out, to start talking about this at the dinner table. That doesn't take a law to pass that -- it just takes raising awareness."
To date, more than 50,000 people have Liked the group's Facebook page.
This is unreasonable for a sprawling town, especially in smaller towns with smaller budgets and with less ability to defend such large turf. Gun fights last minutes, unless persons on the scene are able to protect themselves, there's not much hope that the police could do anything for you. Courts have recognized as such in negligence cases where citizens have failed in arguing that the police should have protected them or their loved ones. The police are just always going to be there after the fact.
That concept is more effective if the perp thinks that every adult person was well trained at shooting back. This concept is recognized in the CT Constitution's declaration of rights: "Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state." We can follow the law, ie the CT Consitution, or we can amend it and set up a splendid police state as advocated by Mike.
As a parent, I truly would like to know all of the supporting factors that enabled his path. I want the report and then the appropriate action. Until then we are just enacting proverbial 'oranges' of 'change when we may come to find out that we should actually be looking at 'apples'.