Thursday forum in Albany seeks solutions to curb gun violence

ALBANY – Columbine. Sandy Hook Elementary School. Marjory Stone Douglas High School. Las Vegas.

Every few years a mass shooting galvanizes the public in a way that the hundreds of others that fall between those massacres do not.

To that lineup, sadly, have been added Buffalo, N.Y., and most recently Uvalde, Texas, where 19 elementary school children and two educators were fatally gunned down.

On Thursday evening, Albany State University and two local organizations will hold a forum to provide information and enlist input on potential courses of action to make mass-shooting tragedies less common.

The forum will be held at 6 p.m. at the Albany Law Enforcement Center, 201 W. Oglethorpe Blvd. It also will be available for viewing online via Zoom at https://bit.ly/3OcGVrq, where participants also can pre-register.

“It is important to help the community unpack what has happened and to allow people of all walks of life the opportunity to express their sentiments as a way to heal,” Sherrell Byrd, executive director of SOWEGA Rising, one of the hosts for the forum, said. “Seeing the recent massacres from gun violence impacted us all very deeply.

“In Albany, we have been blessed to not experience mass shootings, but the frequency that we experience gun violence is still very devastating to a lot of people. Hosting this important event allows our community to begin having courageous conversations that will hopefully move local leaders toward creating policies and solutions that reduce gun violence in Albany and across southwest Georgia.”

Other hosts include the city of Albany, City Commissioner Demetrius Young and Dougherty County Concerned Citizens. Veronica Adams-Cooper with Albany State’s Lois B. Hollis Center for Social Equity in the Master of Public Administration program will moderate the forum.

Speakers will suggest three solutions to gun violence, and audience members will have the opportunity to weigh in on those suggestions during the forum and through a questionnaire that can be filled out at the conclusion.

“We’re going to give everybody who attends the opportunity to speak on gun violence and the three actions we consider,” Tim Wesselman, founder of Dougherty County Concerned Citizens, said. “The (questionnaire) information gathered will be studied later once it’s analyzed by the National Issues Forums.”

The three proposed solutions include making mass shootings more difficult through potential action such as banning assault rifles and “red-flag laws” and other steps; making mass shootings more difficult by bolstering security up to arming teachers in schools, and “rooting out violence and hate in society.”

While the topics include some that are anathema to those who are opposed to gun control, those voices also are encouraged to participate.

“We have asked people we know who are Second Amendment advocates to attend,” Wesselman said. “As far as I know, there is not any person in this forum who is anti-gun. We want as many different viewpoints as we can get.

“I know, me personally, I support gun ownership. I think people agree something can be done. I think we can agree on those things and move forward.”

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