PAX Holiday Update

My email ^ | December 20, 2001 | PAX Staff (and probably Chuckie Schumer)

[LurkedLongEnough]

Dear Friend,

The Center for Disease Control finds that over 30,000 children in America take a gun to school every day.

80% of these guns come from the children's own home.

What can we do to protect our children?

The threat to our children from gun violence is very real. Over 3,700 children are killed in America by guns every year - that's more than 10 children every day.

But there is hope....

PAX's acclaimed national campaigns (ASK and SPEAK-UP) are providing real solutions to gun violence -- solutions that are saving lives - solutions that are changing the national discourse about guns from a political debate to a simple matter of public health and safety.

Because of its innovative approach, in just four years PAX has become the largest non-political organization working on the gun violence issue.

Now we desperately need your help. With the ASK Campaign beginning to achieve monumental awareness and the SPEAK-UP Campaign due to launch in the Spring, PAX has begun to generate significant momentum that, quite simply, must continue to build.

In order to continue this momentum, PAX must raise $500,000 before the end of 2001. Obviously your support could be instrumental in helping us to reach this critical goal.

We have provided updates on the ASK and SPEAK-UP Campaigns below. Please let us know if you need any additional information. Otherwise, we hope, as you are considering your charitable contributions this holiday season, you will consider the important work PAX is doing to empower parents and children to make our nation a safer place.

PAX is saving lives every day, but we can't do it without you.

Sincerely,

Talmage Cooley
Co-Founder

Daniel Gross
Co-Founder

PAX - Real Solutions to Gun Violence
801 Second Avenue
Suite 1400
New York, NY 10017
staff@pax.com
212.983.8705
http://www.pax.com

CAMPAIGN UPDATES

ASK CAMPAIGN
PAX's first initiative, the ASK Campaign, was launched in late 2000. Based on the fact that over 40% of homes with children have a gun, almost half stored unlocked or loaded, the ASK Campaign urges parents to ask their neighbors about guns before sending their kids over to play.

The ASK message has caught on faster than anyone could have predicted.

In just its first year, the ASK Campaign has been seen over 400 million times on TV and in print through media donations and coverage from companies that would never have touched the gun violence issue in the past. In fact, for every dollar contributed, PAX is generating seven dollars in donated media placement.

Also, through official partnerships with the American Academy of Pediatrics and many other national groups dedicated to protecting families and children, PAX has distributed over 500,000 ASK brochures and posters - and this number is expected to grow fourfold in 2002.

Most importantly, the ASK idea is working. Parents in neighborhoods all over America are asking their neighbors about guns - and children's lives are being saved.

SPEAK-UP CAMPAIGN
In early Spring, PAX will launch its second campaign - aimed at helping kids prevent gun violence in their schools. It is called SPEAK-UP. The SPEAK-UP Campaign will create an unprecedented opportunity to reach a culturally influential group - America's students - about gun violence.

Based on a recent government study that found that in 3 out of 4 school shootings, the attacker told other students about their plans, SPEAK-UP urges students to report weapon-related threats in their schools before they turn into tragedies. The SPEAK-UP Campaign will feature the nation’s first-ever 800 hotline for students to anonymously report weapon-related threats of violence in their schools.

The SPEAK-UP Campaign is supported by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, as well as national education associations, law enforcement groups, grassroots groups, and media companies such as MTV and NBC.

The first SPEAK-UP ads, set to launch in early 2002, will feature real kids from schools where shootings have taken place. Some will be students who knew about threats and reported them, and are now heroes for saving their classmates’ lives. Other ads will feature students who knew but didn’t say anything, and now wish they had.

Obviously, SPEAK-UP is an exciting concept, and we expect it to prove just as compelling as ASK.

So that's what we've been doing. As we've said, PAX is creating an entirely new approach to fighting gun violence. It's not about politics. It's about saving lives. Again, we hope you will consider providing your continued support.

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[LurkedLongEnough]

PAX calls themselves a "non-political" organization. Yet, they are chipping away at privacy through kids "asking" and "telling" who has guns, a dangerous thing in itself. Schoolteacher: "let's talk about who has guns".

PAX fails to acknowledge that the problem isn't kids with guns; it's kids who apply their undisciplined behaviors learned from TV, including MTV who supports PAX, on top of real threats to their lives caused by failure to learn and practice civility and respect for others.

Watch out - PAX is a witch hunt coming soon to your neighborhood.

[Joe Brower]

Holding this propaganda statement up to the meter:

The Center for Disease Control finds that over 30,000 children in America take a gun to school every day.

A-yep. That's what I figured...

[archy]

[2nd_Ammendment_Defender]

As we've said, PAX is creating an entirely new approach to fighting gun violence. It's not about politics. It's about saving lives.

It's about saving lives? This asking if your neighbors have guns is about saving lives. If you find out your next door neighbor has a gun, CALL THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY!

[2nd_Ammendment_Defender]

The threat to our children from gun violence is very real. Over 3,700 children are killed in America by guns every year - that's more than 10 children every day.

If Pax was really interested in saving lives they should be informed that about 50,000 a year are killed in automobile wrecks. That over thirteen times the amount of people being killed in car wrecks. So what is a greater problem? Yeah, definately need to focus on the evil black guns.

[LurkedLongEnough]

OK, but what about the black helicopters that will then appear over my house?

[LibKill]

That's funny. It's also true. It's funny because it's true.

[DBrow]

"It's about saving lives? This asking if your neighbors have guns is about saving lives. If you find out your next door neighbor has a gun, CALL THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY!"

I agree with your assessment, and I'd like to add that this is also about shunning "unsafe" families. When your PTA or PTO gets together, or your church group, one thing that gets passed around is which parents own guns. This info is used to decide whether or not your kid is allowed to play with other kids. Read up on PAX's stuff. While they do not say this is desirable their plan makes such a thing possible.

I have been approached at church and told, "just so you'd know", that the so-and-so family has guns in their house. I asked my informant if they had heard of PAX and of course they had, even had one of the downloadable flyers.

Society is safer when criminals don't know who is armed, I said, ending the conversation and no doubt being added to the list. Had I been more clever I would have shut up and tried to find out if there was a real list, paper or spreadsheet, that someone was maintaining. Perhaps another FReeper can do this and report?

[glc1173@aol.com]

"PAX has begun to generate significant momentum that, quite simply, must continue to build." (PAX)

PAX is no "grassroots" organization - just a front for HCI in the advertising and entertainment industries.

My suggestion to anyone asked by some parent if they own guns: just tell them it's no more their business than whether you own any of the many other things kids get hurt with, from darts (almost got my eye poked out at age five) to Mom's lighter.

Scandals of antigun politicians, activists, and lawyers

[Registered]

Yet, they are chipping away at privacy through kids "asking" and "telling" who has guns

Wasn't that a tactic of the Youth for Hitler movement?

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

You mean the black helicopters with silence mode?

[LurkedLongEnough]

Last summer I emailed PAX for information to see what they were handing out, and they sent me a thick envelope that looked like it had been addressed by a six-year old. They apparently don't mind using child labor, and are indoctrinating children at the same time. Probably using public school students for all we know. Pity.

[LurkedLongEnough]

You mean the black helicopters with silence mode?

Well, when they arrive, a silence mode won't matter, will it? ha-ha-ha-ha