Americans Against Gun Violence is co-hosting an annual dinner with the Sacramento Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. The event will feature a keynote address by Dr. Michael North of Scotland. Dr. North lost his five year-old daughter, Sophie, in the 1996 Dunblane Primary School mass shooting in which Sophie's teacher and 15 fellow students were also killed and 10 other students and three other teachers were wounded. The mass shooting was committed by a man who legally owned the handguns he used to commit his heinous crime. (Britain already had a ban on civilian ownership of automatic and semi-automatic long guns, including so-called "assault rifles.") Following the Dunblane Primary School mass shooting, Dr. North helped lead a successful campaign to completely ban civilian ownership of handguns in Great Britain within less than two years. There hasn't been another school shooting in Britain since the handgun ban went into effect, and the rate of gun-related deaths in Britain is currently 1/70th the rate in the United States. Dr. North will speak about how he and other grieving Dunblane parents overcame seemingly unsurmountable obstacles to achieve the handgun ban, why they felt that nothing short of a complete ban on civilian handgun ownership would suffice in response to the Dunblane massacre, and why the British handgun ban should serve as a model for gun control in the United States.

The dinner is open to the public, but advance reservations and dinner payments are required.