LIHUE — Safer schools and gun reform are long overdue, says Maggie Lea.
“I think most can agree it can’t go on like this without change,” wrote the member of the Bishop’s Committee at Christ Memorial Episcopal Church in Kilauea, which is hosting Saturday’s North Shore March for Our Lives sign waving demonstration.
A large gathering is expected 10 a.m. to noon at the intersection near the Lihue Airport.
It is a sibling march to the national March for Our Lives movement started by the survivors of last month’s shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that claimed 17 lives. Hundreds of rallies are scheduled across the country.
Kauai organizers are calling for people to join them.
“Please come out and lend your voice to ending gun violence in America,” wrote Emily Thomas, Island School, physical education. “We all have the right to live our lives in an environment free from the worry of guns being used against us. Children have the right to go to school in the morning with no fear. Parents have the right to drop their children off at school and know that they will see them alive at the end of the day.”
The student-led movement is asking Congress to pass legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons, prohibit the sale of high-capacity magazines and close the loophole in background check laws.
“These demands in no way threaten either hunting or a citizen’s right to self-defense, but if passed will with out a doubt lessen the incidence of school shootings and other mass shootings,” Thomas wrote. “The movement confirms the right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms, as set forth in the United States Constitution, but recognizes that with that right comes responsibility and demands that Congress take action to ensure public safety.”
Lea said Hawaii has a chance to be a model for the nation as it is in the top 10 in the U.S. for gun ownership.
Forty-five percent of Hawaii residents own a gun, she said, which is above the national average. Yet, the state is usually rated as among the safest state in the nation in terms of gun deaths and gun violence.
“This is because we are number four in having the most gun regulation laws in place following, California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, with 78 enforced gun laws in Hawaii as of October 2017,” Lea wrote. “It shows you can keep the public and schools safe with proper laws regulating gun ownership and possession.”
Lea, a retired school and educational psychologist with 31 years experience in California public schools, said there is a need for more mental health workers and other programs in schools to build trust and keep communication open between students and staff.
“Let Hawaii lead the way and let’s stand up for the future generations who with our help can lead us all to a safer society,” Lea wrote. “It is their time to lead as we follow their firsthand experience of what it has been like to be the ‘Mass Shooting Generation.’”
When I was a kid access to guns was just as prevalent as it is today – but something has changed since then:
1. Media glamorizes killers providing wall to wall coverage and makes killers infamous
2. Many kids lack stable home family unit.
3. Related, parents are not as engaged in their kids’ lives as they once were. Economies of a 2 income household and addiction to electronics have squeezed parents out of kids lives.
4. The rise of social media and the non-stop barrage of teasing, bullying, and inappropriate material being shared constantly
Just my 2 cents
Good luck, folks!
You know, of course, that you will be savagely attacked by the “Never give an inch” buffoons who consider ANY attempt at common-sense gun restrictions to be an attack on their sacred right to stockpile masses of weapons of war to “defend my family.”
Hang in there anyway. Oh BTW, I’m a gun-owner and shooter, but as you’ve probably guessed, the National Terrorist Organization does NOT speak for me.
Nothing like giving visitors who have worked hard to get away on a vacation a sign waiving demonstration right when they land… can’t do you it in the Costco parking lot on a Saturday afternoon, or along KCC after work to get all the people stuck in traffic. Look for me, I’ll be the one shaking my head as I drive my. Guns in schools save lives, yesterday was proof… funny how it wasn’t highly publicized tho, why? Because the GOOD GUY had a gun this time and business got taken care of like it should be every time.
Maggie Lea says we have a right not to worry about guns being used against us. We also have a right not to be mowed down by drunk drivers or being robbed or beaten but it happens, evil people exist and break laws. No matter how many laws you pass you are only restricting the rights of law abiding citizens, you do nothing to deter a bad person. Do you think any bad guy looked at a sign saying “Gun Free Zone” and said “Shucks, I’d better find another place to shoot up”?
First off this is not a “student-led movement”. These students are mere puppets of the Left that have whipped them into a frenzy. There is no way a disparate group of students could have assembled into an anti-gun rally within days of the Parkland school shooting- they had a lot of outside help guiding them the whole way. They have no more insight into gun legislation than they have about tax laws or tariffs.
Second, there is no clear cut definition on the made up term “Assault Weapon”. Assault rifles (machine guns) have been banned for decades. The exact same rifle can have a benign looking wood stock or a scary black plastic stock with a hand grip shooting the exact same bullets at the exact same rate and velocity. Don’t forget, it was a scary AR-15 used by an NRA instructor that stopped the deadly Sutherland Springs church mass shooting last year.
Third, magazines can be changed out in a matter of seconds making capacity a negligible issue and they have already been produced in the millions making their banning only affect the law-abiding citizen. And to those saying we don’t need them, tell that to the Korean shop owners who successfully defended their stores with them during the 1992 LA riots that killed more than 50 people and caused a billion dollars in damage.
Fourth, every purchase from any gun dealer requires a background check, it’s already a law.
There is no law that would have prevented the Parkland shooting. Murder is illegal, attempting murder is illegal, shooting people is illegal. Criminals do not go through background checks when buying illegal guns. Criminals will not follow new laws so how does restricting law-abiding citizens make us safer? Do you think if we make guns illegal, then nobody will got shot anymore? Isn’t that how we stopped everybody from doing drugs?
Maggie Lea might want only authorities to have guns but authorities failed on every single level in the Parkland shooting. the FBI who did not act on tips that the shooter intended to shoot up a school, the armed school resource officer who hid outside the school while the shooter went on a rampage as well as three more deputies who hid behind cars while the killer mowed down 17 defenseless people. The “Authorities” let us down. There are more than enough well trained ex-veterans that would volunteer or could be hired to provide school security. There are even many teachers who, being ex-military, would volunteer to take whatever training is necessary to safely carry a concealed weapon, unknown by anyone outside of school administration. That would keep the bad guys guessing. Don’t our children have as much right to be defended as our politicians and Hollywood stars?
Decades ago we had easier access to guns but not the violence, why is that? It’s not the guns or gun laws that need to be changed it’s people. Psychotropic drugs are prevalent and a common thread in all mass shootings and the majority of illegal gun violence and suicides. And then there’s the death of traditional family values, moral responsibility and the suppression of religious values in today’s schools and culture. It’s often been said that you can’t legislate morality. It’s true, it starts with family values.
Stan “God I Love Trump” Lake is shaking his Church Lady finger at us and blaming it all on a decline in morals and family values.
A Quinnipiac University poll released today found that two-thirds of Americans say Trump is not a good role model for children. A majority of every social category agreed, men and women, old and young, black and white, highly educated or not, except for one: The Aging White Fatuous & Unctuous Losers (AWFULs) , also known as republican$. By 72 to 22 percent, they say trump is a good role model, 82% say he shares their values and 80% of the AWFULs say he “provides the United States with moral leadership.”
This is the same “you know what” grabber who is beseeched by porn stars and nude models over affairs, who called Africa a “S####ole,” settled over a con man’s version of a “university,” name calls daily, has been unfaithful across 3 marriages, lies effortlessly and daily, backed a credibly accused child molester in Alabama, gave faint praise for Nazis, crafts his racist remarks for deniability, denigrates women and has an anti-evolutionary little square shaped mouth.
The AWFULs have simply changed the meaning of morality to ANYTHING tRUMP SAYS OR DOES.
There, my friends, is your real “decline!”
There is no such thing as “gun violence”. This is a focus-group-driven buzzword and talking point to create an imaginary bogeyman as the main anti 2nd Amendment propaganda tool. There are PEOPLE who commit violence with guns, but there are many more people who commit violence without them.
And, since the term “gun violence” is a catchword/cliche, the title suggests an unattainable goal. People have been robbing and killing other people, using the weapons of the day, since the beginning of man on this planet, which identifies the real issue – controlling criminal impulses in humans, not the otherwise legal instruments they use to commit crimes.
Anyone who doesn’t realize and/or acknowledge this isn’t thinking, s/he is ‘feeling’, and our liberty cannot depend upon what anybody ‘feels’.
Pastors shall not infringe..
Let’s be clear: any government that tries to infringe upon the sacred right of self-defense is on the wrong side of history, on the wrong side of the Constitution, and on the wrong side of the Bible. And so is any preacher who promotes the infringement of that right. And that includes any priest or church….
Mental health is the avenue to gun control..
American Psychiatric Asso says Half of Americans are mentally ill..
After crafting by politicians and Media all will be crazy except for the media/politicians..
300 million prescriptions for psychiatric drugs were written in 2009 alone..
Your children on medication for ADHD?
Single woman with children diagnosed with depression?
be careful what you ask for
The Irony is that the NRA does not speak for the majority of its members on the most basic of issues, bump stocks, magazines, assault rifles, national database, waiting periods, etc. The problem is that they have the vast majority of politicians either paid off or coerced but most importantly in their pocket, forced to comply with their legislative agenda! If our democracy is to survive these politicians must go. Please vote!