One organization. I want to thank our mayor of San Francisco, our leader for being a leader in the issue of gun violence. Give her a hand and welcome. Mattie scott, the mothers, Brady Campaign, all of the mothers who are part of this endeavor to end gun violence. Give it up for the mothers. [applause] i would be wrong if i didnt acknowledge jason and all of the gentlemen who came home after doing a life sentence in prison behind violence who are here to end senseless violence. Give them brothers a hand. [applause] i definitely have got to give a shout out to the sfpd who are partners of ours to end this gun violence. It is controversy with the community and cops. We are standing here in solidarity. Thank you guys for showing up, sfpd. [applause] all our Community Partners based in this together and or sponsors. Dispensary stores, barberry coast, green door, elevated, the shrine who helps us out. There are so many dispensary that help make this happen. My man, adam. He is a business onener, thank you, adam for providing the resource and support to the community and developers. We are all in this together. I want to say thank you. I want to bring up our amazing mayor who is a great leader, not just in our city but in the region. Give i you will for mayor give it up for mayor london breed. Mayor breed it is always good to come to united players and see so many amazing people. A lot of my friends and folks i have known for so many years. It is great to see everyone here. I wish we didnt have to be here for this reason. So many of us impacted by gun violence for so many years. The reason why i got involved in Public Service had everything to do with the people that i lost over the years to gun violence. You know, i lie look around ande posters, there are a lot more than what you see here, they are of people that i know. Young men who were gone way before their time. I think about over 1,000 guns united players collected and got off the streets and how in my mind that is thousands of people that are still alive because those guns arent on the streets. I think about the mothers that are here today and knowing your son was shot and the amazing work he did, and george, who i grew up with, a little older than me but a good dude who looked out for people in the community. I think about so many people, mostly a lot of africanamerican men who had lives taken away much too soon. I know that we are better than this. I know that when we come together we can help create change. I know that steam it seems hard. It seems hard because two days ago we had a shooting in the bayviewhunters point community. It seems hard because, you know, really sometimes it feels like the only time we in our communities get together is for the funerals of some of our young people who get taken because of gun violence. I want us to be reminded of this because it is so important to understand why we are here. We are here because we have lost so much over the years, and we dont want to lose anyone any more. That is why we are here. We are here to make a plea to people all over the bay area who have guns in their possession. Here is an opportunity on saturday, december 14th, no questions asked, to turnin your guns, to get those guns out of your possession, to make sure that a child doesnt get ahold of that gun and accidentally shoot themselves or another child, to make sure that those guns arent used to harm anyone else. You know, when i come to this press conference every single year, and i have been coming for years. When i participate in these activities, you know, for some reason my heart always feels heavy. It always feels heavy because, you know, i keep thinking about the people that arent here because of gun violence, senseless gun violence, that have taken the lives of so many people. Here is an opportunity for us working together to make sure that it is not one more, to make sure that we change the future of our city so that kids who grew up in th the middle of the violence and they dont know why. We want to make sure that is not normal. We create a new normal of people that are coming together to Work Together to create safe communities. We deserve safe communities. These mothers dont deserve to have lost their children before their time. The folks here are united players and rudy working every day to change the conditions of our communities, they do this because they understand the hurt and the devastating impacts of what violence does to communities. I want to thank our elected officials who are here today that i have worked with over the years in city government. I truly appreciate Assembly Member david chew and senator scott weiner for being here and supporting the effort we continue to push for to address gun violence, not only in our city but in our state. I appreciate supervisor haney who this district encompasses, someone who will carry on the legacy what we need to do to support not only this district but citywide to end gun violence. That shooting may have happened in bayviewhunters point community, but it still has a Significant Impact o on everyone in the city. Every time someone is struck down because of a gun it has an impact on everyone in this city. I want to thank deputy chief greg who i worked hand in hand within the Western Addition community for years when he was our captain. We were at the height of some of the violence occurring in the Western Addition. The way we dealt with that, partnership with the Police Department, working together to provide opportunities and programming and to deal with the need to make sure that we are addressing this issue head on. We got a lot of work to do, folks. With all of these incredible people today and our sponsors. I see jessie in the back hiding with bar bury coast, someone who grew up in the community and has given back and invested in the community. With all of us supporting one another, prayer together and really doing what is necessary, i know that we will get to a better place where no other mother or father or brother or sister has to stand here and be concerned about the impacts of gun violence on their family members and communities. We have an Incredible Opportunity to change San Francisco. We have an Incredible Opportunity because we have an incredible leader in rudy committed to the work and consistent in his advocacy to make sure we confront this issue head on. Not one more today or ever. Come out and bring your guns. Know questions asked. No questions asked. We are going to be here from 8 00 a. M. To 12 00 noon what is the address . 1038 howard street. I want the media, the tweeters and the people who do social media, get the word out because this is a real opportunity. Whoever has a gun in your possession, this is your opportunity to get rid of it and to do something to help make sure that the gun you possess doesnt create a devastating situation in anybodys life. That is why we are all here. Come out on saturday. Thank you all so much for your work and advocacy and all that you do to help support our communities and families. We aint going nowhere. Every single time we need to be there, we are going to be there. We are going to focus on making sure we are supporting and addressing the disparities that exist so our kids never get to a point where this is their reality in the first place. That is why we are all here together. That is why we are standing in solidarity to address an issue that is so impactful to so many people and we can help turn this thing around. Lets get out there. I hope to see you all on saturday. Rudy, thank you so much, and all of the work you continue to do means a lot. That is why everyone here is not just here to support you. We will continue to support you and do what is necessary to change the tide on gun violence in our country. Thank you. applause those guns will never hurt, harm or kill anybody again. We have 244 guns in the last gun buyback. 25 were assault rifles. You see what we are doing with the guns. The sfpd is our partner. We are making artout of the guns. The flyers with the Big Butterfly that is made out of guns. We are the not just holding them, we are destroying them. I want to go ahead and bring up our next speaker. Our senator, please give it up. Senator scott weiner. [applause] thank you. It is really easy to get down with all of the gun violence we see every single day in the news. There is more and more gun violence. It is easy to curl up in a ball and say there is nothing to do to solve this. We know that is not true. This organization gives me hope that working at a neighborhood level, at a local level we can move the conversation up and, finally, do Something Real about gun violence in this country. You know, some of the people who make excuses for guns, nra, they like to talk it is not about the guns, it is Mental Health or criminality or video games. We have heard all of the excuses. Of course, we know that people around the world have Mental Health issues and Mental Health issues from the beginning of time. People commit crimes around the world and they have since the beginning of time. People play video games. What is different about this country is not more Mental Health issues or video games or crimes. It is because we have more guns. This country is drowning in a tidal wave of guns. Until we reduce the number of guns in this society we will continue to have these problems. Young people whose lives are lost and the fact our children in Elementary Schools have to learn what to do if someone starts shooting people up in the school. Can you imagine having to be a child growing up in this kind of atmosphere . Of course, we Want Congress to act. Congress must act. We will make that happen. Until then we have to act locally. We know in california we have some of the strongest gun laws in country and we have a lower rate of gun violence in the state. It is not low enough. It needs to be zero. In the bay area we just put an end to the gun shows after decades we finally saw an end to it. [applause] and here in San Francisco what united plays is doing with the gun buyback is so important. It is step by step, gun by gun reducing the number of guns in the community in peoples hands. Every gun out of circulation is a gun not used to hurt someone. Thank you foreverring you do forever thing you do. You are the best. Get the guns off the street. To brother richards who led the read for shutting down at the cal palace. Thank you. December 14th before the next speaker. Behind full it is the sandy hook anniversary. That is why we are getting this nationwide gun buyback jumping off not in just the bay area but all over. Our next speaker Assembly Member david chew. [applause] good morning. Any united players in the house today . Thank you so much to rudy and your colleagues for knowing that it takes the hood to save the hood. I want to thank all of you who represent this village of San Francisco. Thank you to the mayor and the San FranciscoPolice Department and the faith leaders who provide comfort, the Brady Campaign and those sponsoring the event. We want toal absolut to salute r mothers demanding action. I stand as a father also demanding action. My son goes to Nursery School four blocks from here. Every day i am worried when i drop him off about his safety. My wife and i dont use the word shooting in our house, but somehow my 3yearold knows that word. He has not gone through his first active shooter training, but it is going to happen. This should not be the kind of country that we live in. I also stand as a frustrated policymaker. Years ago i helped to draft new york citys first strict Liability Law to hold manufacturers libel for their violence. The nra went to washington, d. C. And passed the federal law to preempt that local law. I went to washington, d. C. And drafted . Of the countrys gun safety laws. They never got through because of nra. We came to california because we believe differently. We believe that while folks may have a right to a gun, they dont have a right to kill people with that gun. Today 100 americans are going to die because of guns. This hour four people are going to die because of guns. Mothers, fathers are going to grieve. We are all saying there is a different way in San Francisco, in california. I am honored to be part of the community that says, hey, we can do it differently. No questions asked, give us something you dont need to be using. We are living for a day, a World Without gun violence, and i think if we pray and come together. Prayers are not gun with prayers and hard work we will do it. Someday we will not have to continue to grieve for what is happening. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. I want to also acknowledge a couple other parties. Alexander from kilroy. Thank you. These brothers and sisters will be on the streets of San Francisco, svip, make it safer for us. Give it up for them guys. Project cannabis, my man johnny. Uncle dam damian. I want to bring up our leader in this community, district 6, my brother, matt mains. Thank you, thank you. We will give it up for rudy and united players one more time. He had a day named after him this year. For all of the people that you have helped, for all of the lives you have saved, thank you. I know we are talking about the gun buyback, but you all save lives by working with our kids. The work you do to make this place such a safe home for our young people i think does more than anything else could to save lives. We see positive signs in terms every deduction of violence in the community. It is because of what you are doing and what united players are doing and our mothers are doing to make the difference. I want to be very clear that gun buy backs save lives. They save lives, no doubt about it. Over 1,000 guns that were taken off the gun by united players and this coalition here save lives. We know it. If there is a gun in a home it is so much more likely that there is an accident where somebody gets shot or killed. That it is used in a crime or violence or that somebody uses it to take their own life. Many of us have also lost people to suicide. I lost my best friend growing up to suicide, and it was because there was a gun that was available that made it possible for him to take his own life. Every gun you can bring here on saturday. You think it is old, doesnt have a reason to be in your home any more. It doesnt. Bring it here. Get rid of it. No questions asked, and get some money. This is a gun buyback. Dont forget the part where people it is christmas. Holidays are coming up. I want to recognize the extraordinary coalition of folks in this room. The mothers, mattie scott, who brought me to support the gun buybacks when i was a School Board Member seven years ago. We became the First School District in the country to send home information to every student and family about the gun buy back. That was a policy of the School District to do that. I want to thank all of the folks in the room, especially the men who came home, who may have themselves been involved or exposed to victims of violence and have come here and have been leaders in our community to keep everyone safe. The power of that statement is extraordinary. The sfpd. You are making this possible and safe every time it is done, to the funders. This example of a gun buyback has inspired the country. The entire country is joining on the same die to follow the lead of our mothers of our Community Members and rudy an and the younated players. Thank you so much everyone for your leadership. Thank you so much for your leadership. Two more speakers. One of our partners on the sfpd. Mccrack ken. Good afternoon. It is mc crekren. I want to thank everybody here today for the invitation for the San FranciscoPolice Department to participate in this gun buy back program. We have participated in this for the tenth year. This is a collaborative effort between Law Enforcement and the community, united players who handles this. We are so thrilled to be part of it like we have been every year. What we realize is that we become part of the trust and the process that the Community Wants to see between Law Enforcement and those that we are sworn to protect. Rudy earlier today brought out those guns that are on the floor that many of you have taken a picture of. I am extremely confident had one of those guns on the floor not been taken in a gun buyback it might very well be an instrument that might have taken someones life this year. I am confident we are a participant in saving lives. This opportunity that we have here in San Francisco to reduce the gun violence, especially at the Holiday Season may save a childs life, the life of a loved one that you have because there will be one less gun on the street or in a home that may do harm. When we at lawence foment work with the community in the manner like this, it shows the cooperation between the community and Law Enforcement. Often times we can get viewed as the other side of the equation and that becomes difficult in Law Enforcement. We realize we all have the same goal to save lives. We are down 18 in homicides this year. We are proud of that and we have continued to trend downwards over a number of years. Just one homicide in this city is one too many. Our goal so to reach it to be down 100 , 200 , 0. We want to get there. When i was