That's what filmmaker Robert Greenwald is doing with his powerful documentary, Making a Killing, which he is distributing free around the country. To find a screening near you or learn how to host your own house party or group screening, go to bravenewfilms.
The LA Times has also written about it here :
I saw the film yesterday, and you can't walk away without feeling in your heart the devastation of a parent whose child goes to play at a friend's house, only to have one child accidentally kill another after discovering a weapon thought to be unloaded.
(More than 40 percent of gun owning families with children keep their guns unlocked.)
Or the horror of learning the many times, over a period of two months, that the Aurora, Colorado movie-theater gunman blithely ordered thousands of rounds of ammunition and weaponry on the internet before executing his mass murder. Besides the bullets, he bought 2 tear gas grenades, 2 Glocks, a Remington shotgun, a Smith & Wesson rifle, handcuffs, a laser sight, incendiary explosive material, and more.
(A limit on ammunition purchases would have stopped the shooter from buying 6,000 rounds of ammunition.)
Or the despair of parents and a young soon-to-be-bride over the impulsive suicide of her fiancé, who might have reconsidered his rash decision had there been a waiting period before buying his gun.
(Every day 55 Americans kill themselves with a gun. And one of every four suicide attempts is decided in five minutes or less.)
Or the stories of children killed walking the streets or going to church in cities like Chicago, whose gun laws are routinely circumvented by gun shops on its periphery, gun trafficking from other states, and by straw buyers.
(Between 2001 and 2010, more Americans died from Chicago gun violence than from the war in Afghanistan.)
Here's where you can stream the film. Give it the time it deserves (nearly two hours)
Or you can also pick a shorter segment most pertinent to your interest group (suicide, for instance, or domestic violence, or child gun safety.)
And here's where you can read more statistics, all sourced.
For instance, did you know that in the United States:
*Up to 40 percent of gun owners did not go through a background check;
* Every 16 hours, a woman is shot and killed by her boyfriend or husband;
* In states which require background checks, 46% fewer women are shot to death by intimate partners.
And let's talk about the children.
*7 children are killed every day by gunfire.
Why is Robert Greenwald doing this? He thinks the nation may be at a tipping point when it comes to guns. Remember when no one wore seatbelts? When smoking was allowed everywhere?
And then finally after a long battle, everything quickly changed.
He's taking a grassroots, bottom-up approach, giving the people his film to help them grasp the calamity of easy access to guns and rise up and have their voices make a difference, at last.
He makes it really easy. Just click here, type in your zip code and up pops your Congressmen and choices on how you want to reach them. At the very least, tell them to support waiting periods, universal background checks, and mandated gun safety mechanisms. Then invite your friends over for a showing of the movie and tell them to do the same.
(According to a national poll of gun owners and NRA members, 74 percent support universal background checks)
