Gun Violence and the Culture of Fear

Gun Violence and the Culture of Fear  

Gun Violence and the Culture of Fear will be the topic of a Community Forum at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 22 at the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Newbury Park. 

Hollye Dexter, who at the age of 14 held her 7-year-old brother in her arms  after he was shot in the head by a teenage neighbor, will lead the discussion. Dexter is national director of social media for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, an organization founded in December of 2012 by a stay-at-home mom after the mass murder of 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. 

Dexter's brother survived the 1978 shooting but had to endure multiple brain surgeries, never fully healed and was left emotionally scarred, struggling with drug addiction and violent outbursts. "I have been rocked to my core by this horrific tragedy and I cannot go back to my life as normal,  Dexter wrote on her blog site. 

At the forum, Dexter will talk about reforms advocated by her grassroots organization, which sprang up the way Mothers Against Drunk Driving arose to demand action and aid victims.

Moms Demand Action, with 130,000 members nationwide, views gun violence as a public health crisis, with casualties averaging out to nearly eight American children shot and killed every day, the organization says on its website, momsdemandaction.org. 

The Community Forum is free and open to the public; donations will be accepted. For information, visit forum.cvuuf.org or call (805) 358-5844.