Thursday, April 19, 2007
Letter from PAX Co-Founder & CEO, Dan Gross
As we deal with the immense tragedy at Virginia Tech, inevitably people
are going to ask "Why?". They will examine the psychological and
cultural factors that could lead someone to commit such a horrendous
act. Some will say it's about families, religious values and law
enforcement and others will say it's all about guns. Many will be
looking to point fingers of blame. Still others will say there is
nothing that can really be done to prevent these things. "If a child
has evil in his heart, you cannot stop him."
It turns out this is not true!
PAX's SPEAK UP Campaign has proven tragedies like yesterday's can be
prevented. According to government studies, in 81% of school shootings
the attackers tell other students about their plans beforehand. Based
on this fact, PAX has created the national 1-866-SPEAK-UP program,
featuring the first and only national hotline for students to report
weapon-related threats (1-866-SPEAK-UP) and including a powerful PSA
campaign and lesson plans in thousands of schools and after-school
venues nationwide. Stunningly, the hotline has received more than
20,000 calls in only five years. Countless tragedies have been
prevented as a result. 1-866-SPEAK-UP works.
It's still too soon to say with certainty whether 1-866-SPEAK-UP could
have prevented the tragedy at Virginia Tech. But what is certain is
that it has already prevented countless others like it. That is why it
is vitally important, as our nation turns its fleeting attention to the
issue of school shootings once again, and the risk of copycat
tragedies runs extremely high, that we include prevention as part of
that dialogue -- especially a means of prevention that has been as
effective, and has saved as many lives as 1-866-SPEAK-UP.
Daniel Gross
Co-Founder
PAX / Real Solutions to Gun Violence
