On the clear evening of May 29, more than 1,000 people from Greater Cleveland Congregations filled the pews at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, a venerable place of worship in the heart of urban Cleveland. They came from homes in public housing and affluent suburbs, after work and dinner with their family. They came together with a shared determination to not stand idly by and silently assent to the gun violence that plagues our community.

Several dozen [CONECT] faith leaders and public officials came together in Bridgeport’s Margaret Morton Center Monday to ask gun manufacturers to take some responsibility for the number of deaths by firearms every year, particularly in the nation’s cities.

....police chiefs, sheriffs, mayors and governors who signed on estimate that taxpayer-funded purchases of firearms make up 40 percent of sales by firearms’ companies. The bigger part of that number, about 25 percent, are the armed forces and the rest are local and state purchases.

New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson and Police Commissioner Patrick Carroll will join dozens of Westchester United faith and community leaders at New Rochelle’s Lincoln Park. 

Together they will publicly announce the Do No Stand Idly By Campaign: a national effort of community organizations building a bloc of gun buyers in the public sector – which buys 40 percent of the guns in America using tax dollars – to seek change in the gun industry. The bloc includes New Rochelle & Rye Brook, governors, mayors, county executives and police chiefs from 59 jurisdictions in 13 states, as well as the U.S. Conference of Mayors. 

150 CONECT leaders assembled in Connecticut, with Governor Malloy, to advance the 'Do Not Stand Idly By' initiativefor gun safety and industry changes.  Pastor Bernadette and Fr. Jim co-chaired the action.

Connecticut Leaders Seek Changes From Gun Makers, New Haven Register

Malloy to Request More Information From Gun Companies, WFSB Channel 3 News

Malloy Joins Interfaith Effort to Pressure Gunmakers, The Connecticut Mirror

Malloy Demands Info From Gun Manufacturers, CT News Junkie

Malloy Calls On Gun Industry To Discourage Illegal Sales, CT Post

Is it possible to make a safer gun when humans remain as unpredictable and violent as ever?

That’s a question that Donna Weinberger, a psychotherapist from Cleveland, hopes to explore when she travels to the world’s second largest annual gun show in Nuremberg, Germany next week.

Frustrated by the failure of Congress to act against gun violence, a group of clergy from New York and New Jersey is trying a new lobbying tactic — in Europe. In a novel approach, the religious leaders fly across the Atlantic on Sunday to push European gun manufacturers, who have a roughly 25% share of the U.S. market, to apply some of the more stringent standards they already follow in their own countries to the weapons they sell in the U.S....  

Preventing Gun Violence a Year After Newton, Huffington Post

Any pimps out there? Keep your hands off young girls and boys or you might be sent to prison for a long time.  Gov. Brian Sandoval on Thursday signed Assembly Bill 67 to create the new crime of sex trafficking.  The bill, championed by state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, is directed at pimps who take over the lives of young people, often homeless and runway children, and turn them into prostitutes.

Area spiritual leaders from several religions and local political candidates gathered at Saint Mark Parish in Dorchester on Sunday evening to show support and unity after a sequence of brutal violence over the past week.

More than 500 people – a blend of Christians, Jews and Muslims – packed the basement of the century-old Catholic church to pray, reflect, sing and rally together.

Led by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, the event also drew candidates running for the US Senate seat vacated by John Kerry and others eyeing the First Suffolk District State Senate seat vacated by John A. Hart Jr.

Planning for the event began several weeks ago. Organizers said they originally intended to ask the candidates to explain their positions on key issues, including gun violence, youth programming, immigration and health care.

But after two deadly bombings on Marathon Monday followed by a manhunt Thursday and Friday that left one police officer dead and another wounded, the forum’s agenda changed.

Seven candidates appeared at the third of the mayoral forums sponsored by the Daily News and the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation citizens group. The topic was public safety. All were advised to come prepared to explain how he or she would hold the line on crime or drive it still lower — the central duty of any mayor. All were given the opportunity to present their three most important strategies. Not one of them was convincing or spoke with a semblance of coherence or authority. Since 1990, the city has enjoyed a steady downward trend in felonies. Under Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the NYPD has reduced crime to record levels, an achievement that strengthened the foundation of the city’s resurgence. Allow fear to return, and all will be lost, including lives.