Keeping Guns Out Of Unsafe Hands

Yetide Badaki
ActressProducer, Activist
Safer Country Advisory Committee Honorary Chairperson
Click here to see Yetide’s Safer Country video.

On Wednesday, April 16, Safer Country held a special event to remember the victims and survivors of the Virginia Tech tragedy, which happened 18 years ago on that date.  We also raised funds to support our gun tragedy prevention work.

Safer Country is based in Alexandria and is committed to keeping guns out of unsafe hands.

Our speakers included Dr. Michelle Rief, Alexandria School Board Chair; Abbey Clements, Sandy Hook survivor and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, and Andrew Goddard, father of Colin, a Virginia Tech survivor and Legislative Director of the Virginia Center for Public Safety.  Andrew is also a Board member of Safer Country.

We also showed a powerful short film called “Stray Echoes,” which was created by D.C. students who were facilitated by the National Black Movie Association’s Founder and President Agnes Moss.  Safer Country will be working with her and her organization to raise the funds to enable people to see gun tragedies in Black communities in a new way.  

Safer Country also presented its initial Courage award to former DOJ Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer.  She risked her job on principle and lost it when President Donald Trump fired her.  She refused to recommend Trump supporter, Mel Gibson, for a pardon so he could get his gun rights back.

Gibson lost his gun rights after a 2011 domestic violence conviction in California. Under federal law, even a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction can permanently bar someone from owning firearms.

Gibson pleaded no contest in Los Angeles Superior Court to a misdemeanor charge of battering his former girlfriend, as part of a deal with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid jail time. He received a sentence of community service, counseling and three years of probation, and was ordered to pay $570 in fines.

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March 25, 2025 article quoting Safer Country ED, Paul Friedman


Safer Country is also prioritizing:

— expanding our red flag law public awareness campaign within Fairfax County and the City of Alexandria, where it is currently in place, and taking it to other Virginia communities and other states;

— working to reduce gun suicides by active-duty and retired military and their families;

— creating a voluntary program to enable the temporary retention of firearms and ammunition by law enforcement for people with a concern over their mental well-being;

— updating Virginia’s domestic violence protection orders law to prohibit respondents to ex parte orders from possessing firearms and requiring surrender or to encourage victims, survivors, advocates, and lawyers to ask the judge to explicitly prohibit the respondent from having firearms in the terms of the ex parte order;

— adding a penalty for someone convicted of a misdemeanor in Virginia for brandishing a gun so that there is a loss of a right to possess a gun for a reasonable period of time;

— urging the adoption of Connecticut’s Ethan’s law in Virginia, a comprehensive safe and secure storage law;

— urging the adoption of a law to require the secure storage of a gun while being transported in any vehicle in Virginia, and,

— urging the adoption of legislation to pass a tax on the sale of guns and ammunition to fund gun tragedy prevention and the death and destruction they can cause in the wrong hands.

Safer Country is a 501(c)(3).  Contributions are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.


Read Safer Country Executive Director Paul Friedman’s 10/10/23 Op/Ed on Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s refusal to take federal funds to prevent mass shootings and suicides, including military suicides.

It was published in the Richmond Times Dispatch and republished in The Daily Progress in Charlottesville.

Learn about the Gun Violence & ERPO (Extreme Risk Protection Order) Study.

This study was commissioned by The Joyce Foundation.

URGENT:  If you feel concerned about your mental health and are in need of special help, call 988, the SUICIDE & CRISIS LIFELINE.