Opposing Gun Violence: Thanks to TC Trustee Lise Evans, Now It's Fashionable
With five college-aged children of her own, TC Trustee Lise Evans has been pondering that question, but now she’s decided to take action. Last month, Evans and her friend Donna Karan, the designer, teamed with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to launch distribution of a new line of hip bracelets proclaiming “Not One More,” the cry raised by bereaved father Richard Martinez after his son was killed during a rampage near the University of California at Santa Barbara in May 2014.
The launch was attended by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in a mass shooting near Tucson in 2011; her husband, Mark Kelly; and the families of many other gun violence victims.
(To purchase a “Not One More” bracelet or learn more about this effort, visit notonemore.com. The proceeds are being used to support Everytown, a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities.)
“The most active people right now are moms, and that’s fantastic, but is this really about moms?” Evans says. “We want young people to get involved because they really use social media, but also because they need to be demanding a change. So they should be saying, ‘for me and my friends.’”
As Bloomberg has pointed out, Evans says, most Americans want to end gun violence.
“But there’s a fine line about not ending gun ownership or going against the Second Amendment. So we’re calling for some very basic rules – better background checks, to prevent people with mental illness or violent criminal histories from purchasing guns -- and better education for gun owners, so that we can prevent tragedies like children firing guns during play dates. These are really things almost every American would support.”
Karan’s Urban Zen Foundation designed the “Not One More” bracelets and is manufacturing a quantity of them in Haiti to help create jobs there. To buy a bracelet manufactured in Haiti, visit or www.urbanzen.com.
“The bracelets are leather and black – very chic,” Evans says, noting that the actor Hugh Jackman posted a picture of himself wearing one that drew 250,000 likes on Instagram in two days. “There was some concern that black would be associated with death, but I said, no, this is the fashion world, it has to be edgy. But the price”– $25 apiece – is affordable for college students.” – Joe Levine
Published Thursday, Mar. 5, 2015