Community College Journal - April/May 2013

Capt. Mark Kelly and his wife,
shooting victim and former
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,
are on a mission to enact
stiffer gun control laws
TAKING A STAND
AGAINST GUN
VIOLENCE

from a private seller or through a gun show with no requirement for a background check. I suspect that is where the criminals are going.

Journal: With your wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, you’ve campaigned across the country and on television for tougher gun control laws. What are your key goals for this campaign, and how realistic do you think these goals might be in terms of policy changes?

in schools. What would help is to make it much more difficult for criminals and the dangerously mentally ill to get a gun. If we combined that with more help for the mentally ill, we wouldn’t have these regular occurrences at such a high rate.

In advance of his speech at the American Association of Community Colleges’ 93rd Annual Convention in San Francisco, April 21 at noon, we asked Kelly about that effort, the continued threat of guns in our schools, and what it will take to keep our campuses safe.

Journal: Is it possible to make a college campus truly secure when so many students and members of the community come and go every day?

Journal: As someone whose life has been affected by gun violence, can you explain how you look at this issue and why it is a growing crisis in our nation?

Kelly: We have a very good chance of passing a bill that will require a universal background check and curb gun trafficking. This would be a positive step in the right direction.

Kelly: This is a complicated problem and there isn’t going to be one solution that will make it “truly secure,” but there are some common sense things that we can do.

Kelly: It is a growing crisis because we have made it very easy for criminals and the dangerously mentally ill to get guns. Forty percent of all guns are bought

Journal: What do you think can be, or should be, done to stem the rising tide of gun violence in schools?

Journal: In addition to tougher gun control laws, what other steps can students, teachers, parents, and others take to ensure safety within our institutions and communities?

ORG 122012-04

Kelly: One thing that we all can do is to report suspicious and dangerous behavior to school administrators, security, and mental health authorities. Too often this information is ignored and only in hindsight do we realize that something could have been done.

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Journal: Does the threat of violence on campus prohibit students from reaching their potential? How do we put the focus back where it needs to be—on learning?

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Kelly: The focus does need to be on learning, and it is up to elected officials and school administrators to take proactive, common-sense steps to make our campuses safer. The students should be focused on their educations and shouldn’t have to be worried about their own safety. Congress must pass some responsible gun violence legislation.