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About Ceasefire NJ

CFPA's Gun Violence Prevention Project,
Ceasefire New Jersey

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Welcome to Our New Project Director!

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Nicola Bocour Biography

Nicola Bocour is a member of the Ceasefire NJ Project Committee and has been an active member of the gun violence prevention community for over 10 years.

Her involvement began when she co-founded Students For A Safer Tomorrow (SFAST), the Montclair High School student association designed to advocate for common sense gun legislation and spread awareness of the devastating effects of gun violence.  Upon graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, in 2004, Nicola returned to SFAST as director and advisor, where she was able to triple membership and greatly increase the number of activities performed by the group.

In 2007, Nicola joined the staff of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV) and created the student association reACTiON at a high school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  While at NYAGV, she was also a member of a three-person team conducting research and working to reduce gun violence in New York City neighborhoods with the highest prevalence of shootings.

In 2010, Nicola received her J.D. from Seton Hall Law School.  In addition to her work in the gun violence community, Nicola has completed legal internships in public interest at the Urban Justice Center and Lawyers for Children, both in New York.

Upcoming Event:

New Jersey Council Of Churches
Issues & Action 2012

Violence in Our Society:The Church Responds

Saturday, January 28, 2011
9:00 AM  – 2:00 PM
Shiloh Baptist Church, 340 Calhoun Street, Trenton

Keynote Speaker:
Bryan Miller,Coordinator, Heeding God's Call National Office

Workshops will include:
Bullying
Gang Violence
Domestic Violence
Alternatives to Violence-Restorative Justice

$12 in advance--$15 at the door
Make check (includes breakfast and lunch) payable to
NJ Council of Churches and mail to: 176 W. State St., Trenton, NJ  08608
 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call the office at 609-396-9546 for more information

01/08 Interfaith Vigil Against Gun Violence Receives Trenton Times Coverage

gun_violence_vigil

Majahne Williams, 14 years old, takes part in a candlelight vigil to highlight the need to combat gun violence. Majahne lost her mom, Natalie Williams to domestic violence involving a gun, in December 2000. The vigil was held inside Niles Chapel in Princeton.

Click Here to see the all of the Trenton Times photos from the Vigil.

Huge News! A Letter from Mayors Against Illegal Guns (11/10/11)

This is a huge moment. The Senate has announced that it will hold a hearing on the Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011 on Tuesday.

For the first time since the tragic shooting in Tucson, our leaders will discuss real solutions to the deadly flaws in our background check system -- and only because of relentless efforts of supporters like you.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is headed to Washington to testify on the urgent need to Fix Gun Checks, and he will hand deliver every petition we gather before the hearing.

Please watch the short video message from Mayor Bloomberg and ask your friends and family to add their names to our petition before he delivers it to Congress.

To make the biggest impact possible at the hearing, the Fix Gun Checks campaign is coming to Washington, D.C. -- joined by survivors of gun violence, their families, mayors and law enforcement officials.

More than 350,000 Americans -- including you -- have already added their names to the petition to Fix Gun Checks. Please share this video today and ask your friends and family to join you in urging Congress to fix our broken background check system:

http://www.FixGunChecks.org/MayorBloomberg

Together, we can send leaders in Washington an unforgettable message that we’re fed up with a system that allows 34 Americans to be murdered with guns every day.

Sincerely,
Mayors Against Illegal Guns

CFNJ's Press Release on Tuscon Rampage

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release                                                                              Contact: Bryan Miller
January 10, 2011                                                                                                    (856) 371-3038

TUCSON RAMPAGE SHOWS DANGER TO SOCIETY OF VOLATILE COMBINATION OF EXTREMISM WITH GUNS

Ceasefire NJ Calls on Faith Community to Step Up To Combat Dangerous Mix of Political Extremism, Guns and the Gun Lobby

Trenton: In the wake of the devastating shooting rampage of Saturday in Tucson, AZ, Ceasefire NJ, the Garden State’s leading organization devoted to reducing gun violence, expressed sadness at the predictable loss of life and damage to society, and called for citizens and the faith community to ‘step up’ and take the country from those who would use the deadly mix of guns and political extremism to endanger democracy, and innocent lives and sell guns.

The Rev. Robert Moore, Executive Director of the Coalition for Peace Action, of which Ceasefire NJ is a project, said: “We mourn for those needlessly lost, we pray for those wounded and recovering, we cry for the families whose lives have been changed forever.  And, we call on all Americans to see the frightening and dangerous conjunction of guns and political extremism to which this horrific event points so clearly.”

The Rev. Gerald Lamont Thomas, Pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Plainfield, NJ and member of Ceasefire NJ’s Steering Team, said: “I call on all faith communities to take courage to become advocates for the call of justice and righteousness to bring America into honest accountability of our social and political rights.  It is high time the faithful in this state and country said no to extremists and the gun industry and lobby.  We can no longer allow their thinking to dominate our need to have peace within our communities.  The people must change our public policies and mandates that govern for all.”

Bryan Miller, Project Director of Ceasefire NJ, said: “The massacre in Tucson shows clearly that we live in dangerous times in this country.  We have allowed a lobby whose main goal is to protect and encourage the sales and profits of the gun industry to dictate what is acceptable in law and practice – the result being that we tolerate incredible levels of gun violence.  Yet, when extremist are encouraged to use guns by irresponsible politicians and the leaders of the gun lobby, we are shocked.  No one should be, as extremist like Sarah Palin and NRA boss Wayne LaPierre have been using threatening words and images for years.  Now our country is reaping what they and others have sown.”

The Rev. Shannon Vance-Ocampo, Pastor of Watchung Avenue Presbyterian Church in North Plainfield and member of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, said: “The faith community must act to combat the insidious initiatives and motives of those who would encourage gun violence by allowing the gun lobby to hold the field.  I and many others of faith are eager to act to reduce the carnage.  We seek to bring the faith-based and grassroots movement to prevent gun violence, Heeding God’s Call, to our state and nation.  Heeding has enjoyed success in Philadelphia in confronting the flow of guns to that city’s streets.  We believe Heeding can be a means for the faith community to take action to make all streets safer from gun violence (see www.heedinggodscall.org).”

 


Reverend Moore's Letter to the Editor on the Tuscon Rampage (Herald News, Camden Courier Times, Trenton Times, Bucks County Courier Times, Morristown Daily Record)

January 11, 2011

Dear Editor:

The horrifying gun rampage on January 8 in Tucson demonstrates again the devastating effects of  allowing a lobby (the NRA and its allies) whose main goal is to encourage the sales and profits of the gun industry to dictate gun laws.

While most of the media attention about this tragedy to date has focused on those who promote extremism and violent imagery, such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it is very difficult to reign in such enticement to violence as long as it’s not overt and targeting specific people. We should strive for curtailing it, but I’m not optimistic about chances for near term improvement.

But what is quite do-able, and has been done by almost every other industrialized nation, is to have sensible gun violence prevention laws that would prevent anyone who might succumb to such provocations from obtaining such lethality. The failure to do this amounts to allowing individual citizens access to weapons of mass destruction.

A case in point is the Assault Weapons Ban. I’m proud that the Coalition for Peace Action and our Project, Ceasefire NJ, were instrumental in New Jersey becoming the second state in the nation to enact such a Ban in 1991. In 1993, we succeeded in beating back an attempt by the NRA to rescind New Jersey’s state ban, which remains the strongest such law in the nation.

Inspired by our success in New Jersey and other states, a National Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994. It banned ammunition clips of over 10 bullets, such as the 33 clip magazine the shooter in Tucson used. Tragically, the National Ban expired in 2004, when the Bush Administration together with the NRA prevented it from being extended. So the shooter was able to legally buy the clips he used to wreak havoc in Tucson.

Other sensible gun violence prevention laws, like closing the loophole that allows guns of any lethality to be sold at gun shows with no background checks, have also been repeatedly thwarted by the NRA.

When guns are so easily accessible, it’s no wonder that the US has by far the highest rate of gun violence in the industrialized world. Over 30,000 Americans die each year at the hand of a gun. The Tucson rampage is simply the latest dramatic episode in what is a daily occurrence in the U.S.

If we want to get serious about preventing such mass gun violence in the future, we must reinstate the National Assault Weapons Ban and pass other sensible gun violence prevention laws. Such laws would not inhibit gun use by hunters or sportsmen. They would only be sensible steps to make our streets and communities protected from such senseless carnage in the future.

Any reader wanting more information or to get involved in efforts to prevent gun violence can visit the Coalition for Peace Action web site at www.peacecoalition.org; or phone its office at (609)924-5022.

The Rev. Robert Moore

(609)924-5022 Work
(609)924-1206 Home
(609) 937-6931 Cell

The writer is Executive Director of the Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action and Pastor of East Brunswick Congregational Church.

History

New Jersey’s Premiere Gun Violence Prevention Group Merges Under CFPA’s Umbrella

We are delighted to announce that as the New Year begins, Ceasefire New Jersey (CFNJ), the state’s premiere gun violence prevention group, will merge under the umbrella of the Coalition for Peace Action (CFPA), and become a project of CFPA and its educational arm, the Peace Action Education Fund (PAEF). The boards of each entity have been exploring this option since the fall, and both recently voted unanimously to approve it.

The merger will utilize the strengths of each group to synergistically maximize effectiveness. CFNJ has a distinguished track record over the past 25 years, including passing and then preventing the repeal of New Jersey’s Assault Weapons Ban (still the strongest such law in the nation); and spearheading a broad coalition of over 50 groups in passing the first-in-the-nation Childproof Handgun Bill that mandates that all handguns sold in NJ be equipped with built-in technology that prevents them from being fired by anyone except the lawful owner.

Most recently, CFJN has co-founded and taken leadership in an interfaith campaign in Southeastern Pennsylvania called Heeding God’s Call, which succeeded in generating enough pressure from the faith community to close a gun shop last May in Northeast Philadelphia that was responsible for a substantial portion of illegal gun sales that were later used in violent crimes.

CFPA also has a long and successful history of interfaith leadership for peace and justice in the region, so there is a natural and mutually reinforcing collaboration that will increase effectiveness for gun violence prevention, as well as broader peace issues.

CFPA adopted “Halt Weapons Trafficking” as one of its three permanent priorities in 1993, in the wake of the first Gulf War. When the NRA tried to rescind New Jersey’s Assault Weapons Ban that year, CFPA decided that if it was opposed to trafficking weapons of war abroad, it should also opposed them in communities here at home.
Finally, CFPA brings strong administration and grass-roots organizing through its regional office overseeing 18 chapters and over 7,800 member and supporting households to the merger. Combined with CFNJ’s outstanding legislative and media successes, leaders of each group feel this is a win-win outcome.

The former board of CFNJ will re-constitute as a Project Committee of CFPA early in the new year. Any supporters of CFPA, or other interested people, are welcome to join that committee, whether or not they are members of CFPA. Please contact the CFPA office to join the Ceasefire Project Committee or for further information.

Supporters wanting to designate a gift for the work of Ceasefire NJ should now make their check payable to Coalition for Peace Action (for lobbying work, not tax deductible) or to Peace Action Education Fund (for educational work, tax deductible). Please specify in the notation section that your donation is for Ceasefire NJ. Checks should be mailed to the CFPA office at 40 Witherspoon St., Princeton, NJ 08542.

 

 

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