November 8 was a banner day for the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign.  Chapter leaders met at a statewide conference at which we celebrated the passage of AB 962, regulating the sale of ammunition in California.
 
We also attended a Los Angeles benefit at which three eminent individuals and one law enforcement group received awards for their work in preventing gun violence.

L.A. Police Chief designate Charlie Beck presented the James S. Brady Law Enforcement Award to the Police Department's Gun Unit.  The Gun Unit's achievements are outstanding.  Through careful monitoring, it has kept the number of legal firearms dealers in L.A. at 17 for a population of 4,000,000 and has restricted the number of CCW permits to 23!

The next awardee was Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL player and now an NFL analyst.  He spoke eloquently about growing up in an environment in which he was surrounded by guns, becoming a gunowner himself, and ultimately giving up his gun because he realized that carrying a gun made him more vulnerable to gun violence than being unarmed.  He now urges others to follow his path.

Lastly, our own Brady Chapter Leader for L.A. Suzanne Verge and her husband Jeffrey Peak were honored with the Sarah Brady Visionary Award.  Suzanne has led her chapter for ten years and Jeff has assisted her as Secretary.  Suzanne's brother was murdered in 1978.  Her is her eloquent speech from the benefit.

December 10, 1978 -On a Sunday morning two weeks before Christmas,  memories of celebrating Thanksgiving and my mother's birthday were still fresh in our minds.
my Dad was at 8 o’clock mass with my sister Annette and brothers Mark and Patrick, I was 15 and of course sleeping instead of attending church, my brother Arthur had just graduated from college so he was following his dream, backpacking through New Zealand and Australia, and my brother, Peter, had gone out the night before and was staying with friends.

There was a knock on the door—and, just like that  - our world—as we knew it-- ended .
The Santa Monica Police had come to tell my mother those unthinkable and Incomprehensible words...my brother, Peter, had been murdered a mile from our home at the age of 18.
On that day, two families lives were changed forever. The man who killed my brother was a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School and his family was devastated as well.  I STRONGLY believe if there wasn’t a gun in that condo, at best there would have been a fist fight and my brother would have won it hands down...

For 20 years I did not know what to do with my grief and felt powerless over the situation. It took one person, Donna Dees Thomases to change my life.

Donna was watching the news in August 1999 when she saw the North Valley Jewish Community shooting in the San Fernando Valley.  She thought to herself, my kids go to a Jewish Day Care center, this could have been MY family.  She was outraged and called down to Washington DC and pulled a permit for a march for 10,000 people for Mothers Day 2000.  I had to go to the march in Washington, DC, I had to be the voice for my brother who was no longer with us.  I distinctly remember coming up the escalator and coming out of the Metro carrying my brother’s photo and seeing a sea of people...there were 750,000 people there. There marches all across country that day.  I remember seeing people carrying pictures, wearing t-shirts with their loved ones’ photo or carrying signs with photographs of loved ones lost to guns...I can still see the photo of the handsome young man in his tuxedo in his coffin.  There were too many of us...what was supposed to be a one day march turned into a grassroots movement.  I came home and started a chapter here in Los Angeles.

Now I am not asking you to organize a march or start a chapter but more importantly...please talk to one person about what you felt or heard tonight.  I believe one person can make a difference.  I know my brother Peter made a huge difference to our family. Donna Dees Thomases made a difference to me - she gave me my voice.  Please talk to them about the risks of owning a gun.  A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used against you than for self-protection.  That gun is more likely to be used against someone you know or love such as in my brother’s death or in a suicide or in a unintentional shooting.

The holidays are upon us and we know depression increases with the season.  Please talk to people...young and old about the risks of having a gun in the home. This Dec. 4th will mark the one year anniversary of our dear friends’ son Cameron's suicide.  Cameron was a beautiful 17 year old.  Our friends do not own or keep a gun in their home, but Cameron procured one through someone else's careless ownership. We may hear about the statistics tonight...about the risks and the number of deaths but I will tell you... my brother Peter is not statistic, Cameron is not a statistic, Matthew Blek is not a statistic, Kenzo Dix is not a statistic, Laura Wilcox is not a statistic and I could go on...

These are people who are missed every day. We can do better, we will do better... so please, tomorrow - tell people about what you have heard and together we can make difference.