Thanks to our supporters!
Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort would like to thank the generous donors who support our work. A special thanks goes to the Joyce Foundation for their ongoing support of our efforts to reduce gun violence in America.
Many of the communities in our state have experienced firearm homicides in the past two years. It seems no matter where you live, gun violence is always nearby.
Learn more about WAVE’s work for statewide solutions – including criminal background checks on all gun sales in Wisconsin – and how you can get involved.
Click here to download WAVE’s Fall 2009 Newsletter
Anyone who buys a gun should be required to undergo a criminal background check. That’s the opinion of 84% of likely voters in Wisconsin, but it’s not yet the law in our state.
Nearly half of all guns purchased in Wisconsin are sold at gun shows, on the street, in homes, through classified ads or over the Internet by unlicensed, private sellers who are not required to conduct background checks.
WAVE Educational Fund is working to change that deadly reality, in partnership with a growing number of organizations that are showing support for a simple commonsense statement:
We believe that the dangerous and unfair “secondary sales” loophole should be closed. Just like when buying a gun from a licensed gun dealer, a person buying a gun from an unlicensed dealer or private seller should be required to show identification and undergo a criminal background check.
This Growing Coalition of Organizations and Individuals have Already Endorsed the Statement of Support: Read More » »
If we all work together, we can prevent domestic violence homicides in Wisconsin.
Please Call or Email Your Legislators Today
Ask them to co-sponsor SB 380 and SB 381.
Right now, there are laws on the books that are meant to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. However, tragically, these laws are not–and in some cases cannot–be effectively enforced. This legislation creates procedures and legal authority so that the laws we already have to protect victims and prevent domestic violence homicides can be more easily enforced. (Click here for more information)
By Lisa Kaiser
Those armed protesters at anti-tax and health care reform rallies aren’t an anomaly, argues Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. They’re part of a fringe element of the gun rights movement that supports armed rebellion against what they see as tyrannical government control. But Horwitz, author of Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea, argues that this viewpoint is rooted in a flawed interpretation of the Second Amendment and the early years of this nation. Horwitz, who will speak at a Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort benefit on Oct. 22, spoke to the Shepherd about the insurrectionist idea and how it influences the current debate on gun control. Read More » »
By Joel McNally
Milwaukee officials united behind a major new effort to reduce the devastation caused by handguns in Wisconsin until, inexplicably, some of those same officials began negotiating against themselves.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Police Chief Ed Flynn and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm put together an impressively coordinated campaign against handgun violence after tracing the last six shootings of Milwaukee police officers back to one gun store in West Milwaukee.
Even a few pro-gun Republicans in the state Legislature voiced possible support for stronger laws to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons and penalize “straw buyers” who purchase guns that immediately fall into the hands of criminals.
Since politicians all over America are notorious for their cowardice about voting for strong laws to control slaughter in the streets from handguns, for a brief moment it appeared a rare opportunity had arrived to pass meaningful legislation. Armed with evidence that Badger Guns in West Milwaukee had sold one-third of the guns traced from Milwaukee crimes over the last four years, Barrett proposed a series of tougher state laws against illegal sale and possession of handguns. Read More » »
Our cherished freedoms don’t come from guns, but rather from open debate and free elections. Yet recently, the NRA has been saying, “The guys with the guns make the rules,” and gun-toting protesters have been showing up at political events. Is democracy under attack?
You’re invited to join WAVE
for a provocative and entertaining
Evening with Joshua Horwitz
Thursday, October 22, 2009
7:00-9:00 p.m. Refreshments Will Be Served
For more information contact WAVE at (414) 351-9283
Joshua Horwitz received a law degree from
George Washington University and is currently a
visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health. He is Executive Director
of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Investigators Document Repeat Illegal Sales at Gun Shows
David S. Fallis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 7, 2009; 6:14 PM
Undercover investigators working on behalf of the New York City mayor’s office repeatedly bought guns from unlicensed dealers at gun shows even though they disclosed they probably couldn’t pass a background check.
That finding is among those outlined in a 36-page report released Wednesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office that documents alleged illegal gun sales by private and licensed dealers earlier this year at seven gun shows in three states.
The investigation tested private, unlicensed dealers at the shows in Nevada, Ohio and Tennessee to see whether they would sell weapons to someone who said he or she probably could not pass a background check. It also tested licensed dealers at the same shows to see if they would sell to a gun to a person who was buying the weapon for someone else, or what is called a “straw purchase.” Combined, 74 percent of the sellers failed the integrity tests, the mayor’s office said.
The report, which was released on the Internet along with footage of the transactions, calls for background checks for all gun-show purchases and for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to better police the thousands of events held each year.
“This is an issue that has nothing to do with the Second Amendment; it’s about keeping guns from criminals, plain and simple,” Bloomberg said in a statement issued with the report. Read More » »
Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort Press Release
Contact: Jeri Bonavia, 414-351-9283
Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort: The State Legislature’s Failure to Close the Existing, Gaping Loopholes Amounts to a State-Sanctioned “Guns For Criminals Program”
(Milwaukee, WI) – A landmark study released today by the UC Davis, Violence Prevention Research Program adds to the growing body of research that concludes that requiring regulation of all gun sales will prevent gun violence. According to Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, the author of the national report, Inside Gun Shows: What Goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody’s Watching, “the leading proximate source of crime guns is the private sales market. More than 85% of recovered crime guns have gone through at least one private party transaction following their initial sale by a licensed retailer.”
(Use the following link to see the full report, including hundreds of undercover photographs from gun shows in Milwaukee, Waukesha and elsewhere: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp. The comprehensive study includes observations from 78 gun shows in 19 states between 2005 and 2008.)
Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort praised the study and said that the state legislature cannot continue to ignore all the mounting evidence and compelling data. To prevent gun violence and save lives, it needs to enact a law requiring a criminal background check on all gun sales.
“Currently in Wisconsin, our state’s gaping loopholes amount to a ‘guns for criminals’ program,” said Jeri Bonavia, Executive Director of WAVE. “Today’s study shows that there is an effective way to prevent gun violence. Now, the Wisconsin legislature needs to take action. If they pass a law requiring criminal background checks prior to all gun sales, they will prevent gun violence, and they will save lives. However, if they continue to do nothing, they will be guarantying that high-risk individuals, like felons, will continue to have easy access to guns: In essence, they’ll be saying that they just don’t care that 450 Wisconsinites are killed with guns every year. Our state lawmakers simply must find the political will to enact a sensible background check requirement for all gun sales. It really is that simple.”
According to a statewide poll, nearly 85% of Wisconsin’s likely voters, including 70% of our NRA members and supporters, are in favor of background checks on all gun sales.
Source: Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort
Can you help us collect postcards in your neighborhood?
We have been working hard to close the deadly loophole that allows high-risk individuals to easily get guns. To help achieve this, WAVE has been collecting postcards that support background checks on all gun sales. So far, we have thousands from all across the state, but need more from many areas.
Will you help us?
Here’s what you can do. (It’s easy, and it only takes a couple of minutes - We promise!):
1) Sign a postcard demanding that all gun sales require a background check. (For those of you who have signed a card, thank you!! But don’t stop yet; take step 2.).
2) Get your Wisconsin friends and family involved. Send them an email, asking them to sign a postcard.
Approximately 80% of Wisconsinites (including 70% of Wisconsin’s NRA members) believe this loophole should be closed. Unfortunately, too many of our legislators are choosing to keep this deadly loophole open. Legislators will continue to ignore their constituents and side with the pro-gun lobby from Virginia only if we let them - only if we remain silent.
So, again, will you help us?
2) Get your Wisconsin friends and family involved.
Once you’ve done your part, we’ll do ours. We’ll be hand-delivering the postcards to your legislators, so that they know that you care and that you expect them to take the steps necessary to prevent gun violence in Wisconsin.
P.S. If you prefer, we can mail you blank cards that can be returned to us in the mail. Whatever is easier for you, works for us.
FOX 11 WLUK-TV interviewed WAVE’s Executive Director, Jeri Bonavia on Aug. 8th about an “open carry” picnic in Green Bay, as gun proponents continue to preach the wrong message that our communities need more easy access to lethal guns.
The opposite is true: Wisconsin, and our nation, needs stronger and effective gun laws, such as a universal background check on ALL gun sales, to keep deadly weapons out of the wrong hands.
FOX 11
Take Action!