In this interview I met with Talmage Cooley, the CEO of the Center to Prevent Youth Violence. He is one of the most prominent advocates for Gun Control. For this fieldwork visit Talmage and our group planned to meet at a restaurant on West 4th Street mostly because how cold it was outside. He was kind enough to buy us drinks. During our interview with him we decided to record him so we could get all the information from him. He told us about his work and how he got involved with the Gun Control. He also gave us many choices on our group doing volunteer work and how we can help at all to make some difference. He told us about a project going around called the “Give a Hug Project” which is where you send a card with drawings or decorations to show something good or happy which would then go to gun victim survivors. As people know we have many terrorist attacks in the United States but what I learned from him is that barely any gun deaths are caused by terrorism. It’s mostly suicides or children accidentally shooting themselves with an unlocked, fully loaded gun. “Half of homes with children have a gun and half those guns are left unlocked or loaded” I discovered that as important Talmage is to gun control in America there are many more people trying to prevent gun violence but it really hasn’t changed. I asked Talmage if he thinks guns and gun laws will change by the next ten years and he said that there’s a very low chance it will change for the better. This interview really helped our group on our project because we got a lot of new information of Gun Control and getting to speak with someone who really knows this topic is very helpful for us. After he told us about the Give a Hug Project I searched and got more information about what this was and I’m trying to now get part of our school to make a card and give it to us to send to gun victim survivors. I want to remember that gun deaths are rarely from terrorists or gangs, but more suicides and sad mistakes kids have done. This will be very crucial for our group to talk about in our Teach-In.
