Those of us involved with the Virginia Center for Public Safety believe we need our legislatures to pass reasonable gun laws to help reduce gun violence in Virginia and throughout the country.

Typically, activists on both sides of this issue lobby for/against gun laws that are consistent with their beliefs. We see a vast middle ground of the population abhorring gun violence, but not taking it on as their issue.

While many of our activists have family members who have suffered from the results of gun violence, we would like to make people feel personally involved in the issue without having to go through such heartbreak.

VACPS's Advocacy Through the Arts Committee works toward capturing the hearts of those who don't feel personally involved or have given up hope that anything can ever be done about the problem. We want to utilize the arts to demonstrate the pain and suffering caused by gun violence. We do this by encouraging artwork, theatre, poetry, films and music related to this theme and putting on exhibits and performances of these works.

The ultimate goal is to motivate people enough to learn about the issue and to make their concerns known to their newspapers, communities and representatives.

-Gene Lempert, Chair