Thursday, December 27, 2012
The annual event is moved up because of the Sandy Hook shooting. Share your thoughts.
There were a lot of long lines in Los Angeles on the day after Christmas, but not all of them were at shopping malls. The nation's second-largest city held its annual gun buyback event, moving it up from Mother's Day in response to the recent Sandy Hook Elementary shooting tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. And the yield was strong. The Los Angeles Times reported that the event, which was held at the historic Coliseum and in Van Nuys, surpassed the 1,673 guns collected in 2011. The incentive was gift cards to Ralphs, a prominent Southern California supermarket chain that is owned by Kroger. The city gave gift cards worth up to $100 for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and up to $200 for assault weapons. In one case, organizers pulled 22 …
Saturday, December 22, 2012
A spokesperson for Barge likes the suggestion for schools. Share your thoughts.
The suggestion Friday (December 20) of having armed officers at schools as a deterrent to mass shootings found approval from Georgia School Superintendent John Barge. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Having a school resource officer would certainly be ideal,” Matt Cardoza, director of communications at the Georgia Department of Education, said Friday after a conversation with Barge. “It makes the school a safer place, but the state would have to pick up a significant part of that cost. "Districts aren’t really in a position to pay for more than what they’re already struggling to pay for.” Friday, a National Rifle Association executive called for Congress to foot the bill for armed guards at every school in the country. "The …
Friday, December 21, 2012
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," the NRA's Wayne LaPierre said.
In an amazing Friday morning press conference in Washington DC, the National Rifle Association broke its weeklong silence following the horrific shooting of 26 people at a school in Newtown, CT and called for a surge of gun-carrying "good guys" around American schools. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for a new kind of American domestic security revolving around armed civilians, arguing that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." "We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents," LaPierre said. "Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers. Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent, and vulnerable members of the …
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Suwanee Patch and other sites nationwide will participate in an online moment of silence in memory of the victims of the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The event will last one minute.
- AWARENESS
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Thursday, December 20, 2012
Suwanee Patch will go dark at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, December 21. And so will thousands of other websites across the country. Patch and other online companies are taking part of an online moment of silence in memory of the victims of the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The event will last one minute. As of 6 p.m. Thursday, more than 130,000 people took the pledge on Causes.com. Websites wishing to participate can embed a green ribbon on their site, like the one you see in this article. Twitter users are also asked to use the hashtag #momentforSandyHook to show their support. Online entities can also visit webmomentofsilence.org for a JavaScript code to automatically darken their site at 9:30 a.m. The …
Gwinnett has the Norcross Gun Club and Range, as well as Dick's Sporting Goods outlets. Will tighter gun controls ensure our safety?
- LOCAL CONNECTIONS
- Judy Putnam
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Thursday, December 20, 2012
The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting deaths in Connecticut have everyone in Suwanee and Gwinnett on edge and wondering just how safe they - and their children - really are. The focus naturally turns to guns, and how to keep weapons from the hands of those who would kill the innocent and unarmed. And it has put those who sell guns in the spotlight, including those retailers in Gwinnett. Dick's Sporting Goods, which has over 500 stores in 44 states including Peachtree Corners and Buford (Mall of Georgia), sells rifles, shotguns and ammunition. Shortly after the Friday shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the company made an announcement that "out of respect for the victims and their families," it would remove all guns from sale and from …
The sign is posted in Rivermoore Park by neighborhood children.
- OPINION
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Thursday, December 20, 2012
The tragedy that was the Connecticut school shooting of December 14 already was felt in Suwanee. Now, there's a memorial, too. Children from the subdivision of Rivermoore Park have erected a memorial to the people slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The photo of the memorial was relayed to Patch by a resident. The memorial is located at the subdivision entrance, which is on Moore Road near Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, according to resident Michelle Frost. It reads: "Angels Fly Among Us. We (love) You Sandy Hook." -- Has your subdivision, church or civic group done any memorial for the Sandy Hook shooting victims? Share them in the comments below, or upload the pictures here. See also: Don’t miss any Suwanee news. Subscribe to Suwanee…
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Patch bloggers and commentators throughout Northeast Georgia offer their thoughts to help us sort through last week's catastrophe.
- GOVERNMENT
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last week spread grief and turmoil across the country, including to towns and neighborhoods throughout Gwinnett County and Northeast Georgia. Many of Patch's contributors have responded with thoughtful and thought-provoking posts to continue the local conversation about what the mass murder of children and their teachers means, and how we should respond. Here is a glimpse at some of their blogs and opinion pieces, in case you missed them: Leigh Hewett on discussing the shootings with your children: I began to research how to handle telling your children about a school shooting. Obviously, we would not tell our 3-year-old but most of what I read said that it would be appropriate to talk to a child over …
Virginia-headquartered group issues a statement about preventing future tragedies.
- GOVERNMENT
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012
After days of silence, the National Rifle Association has released a statement on the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Conn., saying it will make "meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again." In the release, the organization begins to explain its silence, saying: "Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting." Critics had called out the group in the days following the December 14 shooting: As citizens and legislators began to fall on either side of a debate about what, if at all, should be done about gun laws, many wondered why the group was absent from the conversation. Patch submitted a media …
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Is gun violence getting worse? Coincidentally, Michigan passes a law that would allow concealed weapons in schools. Share your thoughts.
The trauma and reaction is still strong after the Friday (December 14) school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children and six adults dead. There was reaction from some elected officials, from President Obama to state officials in New York. As reported by USA TODAY, the president called for "meaningful action," without being more specific. And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for a "crackdown" on firearms. However, in an interesting development of coincidence, the Michigan Legislature on Friday passed and sent to the governor a new gun law "allowing concealed pistols in schools and other places," as reported by mlive.com. And there are still-fresh memories of the movie theater massacre in Colorado earlier in 2012. The Huffington …
Friday, December 14, 2012
The agency is acting in reaction to Friday's school shooting in Connecticut that resulted in 27 deaths.
- POLICE & FIRE
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Friday, December 14, 2012
With an eye toward preventing possible "copy cat" incidents in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting, Gwinnett Police plan to step up patrols in and around county schools. In a news release Friday (December 14), Gwinnett Police said the patrol "will be assigned to every school within Gwinnett County Police jurisdiction" and would last "for the next several days." "The Gwinnett County Police Department takes the safety and welfare of all of the citizens within Gwinnett County seriously," the release added. Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut has left 27 dead, including someone at a "secondary scene." Updates are on Newtown Patch. -- Do you fear for your childrens' safety at schools in Suwanee and Gwinnett? Share…
ed marshall
4:07 pm on Thursday, December 27, 2012
Let's create more unarmed victims!! Yaaaayy!!! Then we can have a massacre in LA too. The gun buy back is the dumbest thing EVER! Its meant to get illegal guns off the streets not for law abiding citizens to give up their's! more ›