Sandy Hook Promise Says Tech Can Counter Gun Violence

Describing it as a "call for ideas" in the fight against gun violence, Newtown-based advocacy group Sandy Hook Promise launched a new initiative to encourage proposals from leading minds on how to make communities safer through technological innovation.   

That could include anything from electronic firing pins and GPS trackers on guns to emergency response systems in schools, the organization says.

"While legislative efforts are very important and we continue to support those efforts, we also believe that the solution cannot be passing new laws alone and that there are other effective solutions that don’t involve Washington," said the release from Sandy Hook Promise on their website. "We each have a role to play in making our families and communities safer."

Sandy Hook Promise unveiled the initiative in San Francisco Thursday in a conference with top venture capitalists and other investors, according to CBS Local San Francisco.

As one part of the initiative, the group will award prizes to the most promising proposals for "ideas and prototypes" to counter gun violence through technology, partnered with a nationwide call for ideas from enterpreneurs. Sandy Hook Promise says a group of "venture capitalists and angel investors" are ready to fund projects.

The group, formed in the wake of the 12/14 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, has previously sought to rally the public to make the online "Sandy Hook Promise," which asks supporters to "honor the 26 lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School." In February, the group's leaders told Patch they hoped this online base would give them the numbers necessary to make the kind of social change necessary to end gun violence in America.

"We'll have these folks when legislation is ready to go through," co-founder Tim Makris told Patch. "We'll say, 'Hey, we're going to have a big push. Please call your congressman and woman to help us. We need you to get the word out and start spreading this out, to start talking about this at the dinner table. That doesn't take a law to pass that -- it just takes raising awareness."

To date, more than 50,000 people have Liked the group's Facebook page.