Operation Lipstick preaches anti-straw gun purchase message in Chester
CHESTER » A Philadelphia-based initiative taking a new look at the fight against straw firearms purchases brought its message to young women at Chester High School Tuesday morning.
About 150 female students gathered in the auditorium for a presentation from Operation Lipstick, a newly formed collaboration between Philadelphia-based violence prevention group Mothers in Charge and the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, followed by smaller workshop sessions.
“This comes under our Track and Trace program, which is a data-driven approach to addressing issues of gun violence,” state attorney general Outreach Program Manager Anthony Luker told students. Luker cited unspecified department figures showing that 80 percent of straw purchases are committed by young women.
Operation Lipstick, standing for “Ladies Involved in Putting a
Stop to Inner-City Killing,” seeks to break the pipeline of young women being used to buy firearms for men barred from legal purchases.
“What are some of the reasons we see this kind of activity happening? Some of the reasons are as follows – lack of self-worth; low self-esteem; it could be domestic violence; maybe it’s trafficking,” Luker said in his presentation. “All of these influences are ones that can affect any one of you on any given day. We want to you to know – we need you to know – that you are not in this alone; this entire group that you see before you today is not just about today; it’s about tomorrow, it’s about your future.”
Luker was among 10 local, school and state officials on hand for the presentation, joining 11 members of Mothers in Charge. The violence prevention and education group was founded in 2003 by Philadelphian Dorothy Johnson-Speight after the 2001 murder of her son. Johnson-Speight estimated direct membership and partners now stand at several thousand persons with 10 chapters nationwide.
Operation Lipstick is the latest initiative for the group, kicking off Nov. 19 last year at Dobbins Career and Technical High School in North Philadelphia. According to Luker, the pilot program in Philadelphia is now expanding into Delaware County, with the results being gauged for potential expansion across the commonwealth. Four students facilitators from Dobbins were on hand Tuesday to conduct workshops with Chester students.
“We kind of craft it in a way that it depends what the issues are in the particular school,” said Johnson-Speight. “While we’re promoting the whole idea of how it’s wrong to buy, purchase, carry or hold guns for those who couldn’t purchase them and the
consequences to all of that, we also talk with (students) about self-esteem and educational goals and sex trafficking.
“Whatever the issues are for that group of young ladies … we bring in resources and supports to help them.”
Johnson-Speight said the group hopes to train Chester students as facilitators in the future to “take the message to their peers and help us to facilitate workshops.”
Chester Upland School Superintendent Juan Baughn said following the presentation that the Operation Lipstick program has the full support of his office and of the school board, with plans to incorporate it into a newly formed safe schools initiative. Details on the full scope of the initiative are pending, according to Baughn.
“We got a $440,000 (state) grant last year and upgraded a lot of our infrastructure and a lot of professional development,” said Baughn. “We applied for that grant again; we want to do things that are keeping our youngsters safe but also extending to the community as well … I like (Operation Lipstick) because it’s an extension into the community.”
Along with the Chester Upland School District’s safety schools initiative under development, city government to Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland.
“That gun task force focuses on how weapons and guns are getting into our communities and how we can stop the flow,” Kirkland said following the presentation. “If we can stop the flow of guns … we can stop gun violence.”
The project is being planned with input from the office of State Rep. Brian Kirkland, D-159 of Chester, who now sits on Gov. Tom Wolf’s gun violence task force, along with Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.