Amnesty International takes part in First Monday 2000

by Beth Conahan staff writer

First Monday 2000 started off with a bang on Monday, Oct. 2 as the next major anti-gun event after the Million Mom March.

Coordinated by Alliance for J ustice and Physicians for Social Responsibility, anti-gun violence events were held in more than 300 colleges and other organizations and every major city across the country.

First'Monday 2000 was launched in July by Janet Reno in an event in Washington, D.C.

"October 2 will be an unprecedented day of action to stop gun violence in this country," Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron said. "We are going to put a human face on the tragedy of gun violence and remind Americans that, without responsible gun laws, every one of us is at risk. We intend to launch a mobilization so massive that politicians simply can't ignore it."

Cabrini's branch of Amnesty International set up events on campus to force the campus to see the effects of gun violence.

Did you sit down in the cafeteria for dinner at a chair marked with a statistic on gun violence? If so you represented one of the 89 people who die each day from gun violence in America.

The chalk outlines were drawn around campus by Amnesty International to remind everyone about gun violence. The outlines read, "12 kids die everyday from gun violence in the U.S."

Maybe you noticed one of the 12 chalk outlines around campus. They represented the 12 children that die each day as a result of gun violence.

The members of Amnesty Inter- national also held an event on campus called ''Ballots not Bullets," offering students an opportunity to register or find out infonnation on how to get absentee ballots.

"I was very pleased with the results of First Monday because we registered over 25 individuals to vote in Pennsylvania and handed out various information concerning absentee ballots and registration in other states," Melissa Shannon, Amnesty organizer said.

"I was also happy that people stopped by our table to discuss gun control issues. It is a very relevant topic to us as college students. Hopefully we'll be doing more with this in the future."

If you are interested in being a part of Amnesty International, you can call Melissa at (610) 9028798.