“The thought of having armed guards and ‘lockdown drills’ never crossed our minds.” A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence The title of this message is an excerpt from Dr. Michael North’s keynote address at our 2023 annual dinner, and it’s also the prompt we used for our 2026 National High School Essay Contest. After he lost his five-year-old daughter, Sophie, in the 1996 mass shooting at the primary school in Dunblane, [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence On the morning of April 7, 2026, ICE Agents shot Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez seven times after pulling him over as he was driving to work on a highway near Patterson, California. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons claimed that Hernandez was a gang member wanted for questioning concerning a murder in El Salvador, that Hernandez “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer [...]

Will an ICE Agent Get Away With Murder in Minneapolis? And Can We Save Our Democracy? A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence January 21, 2026 (Note: Click on these links for updates on the situation in Minneapolis, including the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol officers on January 24, 2026 and the decison by Minnesota officials to sue the Trump Administration for access to evidence that could lead to [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence Speaking on the PBS NewsHour in 1991, the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called the misrepresentation of the Second Amendment, “[O]ne of the greatest pieces of fraud – I repeat the word ‘fraud’ – on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”[1] The consequences of this fraud have been deadly, including for 31 year-old Charlie [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence Every year when we announce the opening of our annual Americans Against Gun Violence National High School Essay Contest, I’m pleased on the one hand, and deeply troubled on the other. And this year, I’m more troubled than ever. I’m pleased because I believe that our essay contest, which we’ve hosted annually since 2018, is an important way of stimulating and rewarding critical thinking on [...]

Sharing the Blame for the Apalachee High School Mass Shooting A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence On September 4, 2024, a 14 year-old student at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, brought an AR-15 style rifle to school and killed two fellow 14 year-old students and two teachers and wounded nine other students and staff.[1] The student, Colt Gray, was known to have serious mental health problems. His mother, with whom [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence   We may never know what prompted a baby-faced 20-year-old young man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, to borrow his father’s AR-15 style rifle and attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at an open air political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 13, 2024. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service agent after firing multiple shots, one of which grazed Trump’s right ear. One bystander was killed [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence On June 21, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision that Zackey Rahimi didn’t have a constitutional right to own a gun. Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. It shouldn’t have taken the Court 356 days from the date that it agreed to hear this case and 227 days from the date that it heard oral arguments to reach this decision. Here are [...]

“Gun Control in Great Britain After the 1996 Dunblane Primary School Mass Shooting: A Model for the United States” Full Text of the Keynote Address by Michael North, Ph.D. Presented at the Americans Against Gun Violence Annual Dinner In Sacramento, California, October 21, 2023 With an introduction by Americans Against Gun Violence President Dr. Bill Durston   Dr. Durston: During the many years that I’ve been working in the field of gun violence prevention, I’ve [...]

A Message from the President of Americans Against Gun Violence I’ve been working in one way or another on the issue of gun violence prevention for much of my adult life – ever since 1969, that is, when I returned from serving in combat as a member of the U.S. Marines in the war in Vietnam. Having just left a war zone, I didn't want to permanently live in one. In all the years that [...]