OUR COMMUNITY
Gun Ownership Local gun owners’ group hopes to gain members in the wake of the Oxford High shooting.
Locking guns before storing them can keep children safer.
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
T GAGE SKIDMORE VIA WIKIPEDIA
hough it faced obstacles gaining a foothold with in-person meetings, seminars and training opportunities due to the pandemic, the Michigan chapter of Giffords Gun Owners for Safety (Giffords) — in the aftermath of the horrific Oxford High School mass shooting — hopes to grow its membership of gun owners in 2022. The goal is to teach them the responsibilities of gun safety and handling while advocating for sensible gun control policy changes at the local and national level. Giffords is growing and has chapters in seven states. Giffords was founded by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a lifelong gun owner, who in 2011 was shot in the Gabrielle head by a mass shooter while Giffords greeting constituents in an Arizona shopping center parking lot. Six people died in the attack and 13 were
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wounded. Giffords built her organization around its mission of valuing gun ownership and the Second Amendment as well as pushing for reforms in gun control to save the thousands of lives that are lost in the United States each year to gun violence. Giffords spent years relearning how to walk, talk and regain her mobility and cognitive skills. Recently, she celebrated becoming a bat mitzvah at her hometown synagogue in Tucson. “My heart breaks knowing three high school students in Michigan will never receive their diplomas because their lives were taken in a senseless act of gun violence,” Giffords told the JN in a released statement regarding Oxford. (Since then, another student died.) “Their families and their community will never be the same.” Giffords added that all the outrage and heartbreak over mass shooting deaths will make no difference if politicians at state and federal levels refuse to act to instate stricter
gun control measures. “Every day that our country does not pass lifesaving gun laws is another day that we fail our children. This tragedy didn’t have to happen. It’s long past time for our elected leaders to stand up to the gun lobby and pass commonsense gun safety laws. Our children’s lives — all of our lives — depend on it,” she wrote. REFORMS PROPOSED IN STATE LEGISLATURE The Michigan chapter is headed by newspaper journalist-turned-privateinvestigator Jonathan Gold. A gun owner and firearms instructor with more than 25 years of experience, Gold has used his activism calling Jonathan for gun control reform ever Gold since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. A member of Moms Demand Action
