By Peggy Carroll
On the day you see this story, 91 Americans will die and hundreds of others will be injured by guns.
In less time than it takes to read the article, 17 people will be killed by a firearm.
In the coming week, more than 600 people will be killed and during this year, 100,000 will be shot.
Can anything be done to stop the violence?
Everytown for Gun Safety believes the answer is yes. The organization is calling on people throughout the nation, in large cities and in small villages, to show their support for stronger gun laws on June 2, 2016, the second annual National Gun Safety Awareness Day.
It is asking citizens to petition their mayors to recognize the day, and they are encouraging everyone in favor of ending the violence to wear a bright and vivid color: Orange.
In Morristown, Mayor Tim Dougherty already has come on board. He has issued a proclamation declaring not only June 2, but all of June, as Gun Violence Awareness Month.
The reason: One of the goals for curbing gun violence is heightened attention during the summer months, when gun violence typically increases.
STARTING WITH MAYORS
Everytown, a national advocacy group dedicated to gun control and curbing violence, says it wants to make this year’s event its biggest campaign ever.
“It’s a simple statement,” the advocacy group holds, “but when all of us act together on a single day, every social network, television, chamber of power and town will reverberate with our call for a future free from gun violence.”
The call to wear orange to raise awareness came from a group of Chicago teens who were friends of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old high school student killed on the south Side of Chicago one week after she performed with her school band at President Obama’s second inauguration.
What started as an effort by her friends to honor her memory has turned into a nationwide movement.
Her birthday was June 2.
Everytown for Gun Safety began as Mayors Against Illegal Guns and was formed in April 2006 during a summit co-hosted by then-Mayors Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Thomas Menino of Boston.
According to Bloomberg, the goal was to build an organization to match the political influence of the National Rifle Association.
The initial group consisted of 15 mayors but has grown to more to 1,000 – including Mayor Dougherty in Morristown.
Two years ago, the mayors group merged with Moms Demand Action to form Everytown. Its mission, it says, is to “support efforts to educate policy makers, as well the press and the public, about the consequences of gun violence, and promote efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.”
Most recently, the group has focused on efforts to require universal background checks on firearms purchases. They also back state laws requiring the reporting of mental health records to the national background check system.
LOCAL SUPPORT
Mayor Dougherty agrees.
He said so when Team 26, the cyclists who travel from Newtown, CT, to Washington each year, arrived in Morristown in April.
The group (one cyclist for each person killed) has made this same trip four times since the December 2012 massacre of 26 children and staff members at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School. Each year, the cyclists have stopped in Morristown.
The purpose of the ride remains the same: Lobby for a federal law mandating background checks for all gun purchases, and close loopholes that make it too easy for guns to land in the wrong hands.
As he welcomed the cyclists, Dougherty said that Morristown “dodged a bullet” last summer, thanks to an alert security guard.
The guard at Headquarters Plaza grew suspicious about a Peapack man who, it turned out, was toting two semi-automatic Glock pistols, hollow-point bullets, a fake badge and handcuffs near a cinema, daycare center and offices.
On Valentine’s Day 2013, large numbers of people gathered at a vigil on the Morristown Green to mark the two-month anniversary of the Newtown massacre and demand stricter gun controls. Doughterty presented a letter signed by 33 New Jersey mayors, asking Gov. Christie to take a harder line supporting federal legislation to require criminal background checks for all gun sales.
Dougherty said he will continue to push for both background checks and a state law mandating psychological evaluations for anyone caught with firearms — even licensed firearms–in a public space.
He noted that a state judge at first did not order such a test for the Peapack man, until “we screamed and hollered.”
“It just makes common sense, right?” the Mayor said of such evaluations.
In issuing his proclamation, Dougherty said one goal is to “bring citizens and leaders together to discuss ways to make our communities healthier and safer.
“Tackling gun violence brings leaders from all walks of life together to dialogue about how we as a community, can stem the violence,” he said.
The National Awareness Day is a start, Everytown officials say. “The first step to addressing a problem,” they said in a statement, “is recognizing that we have one.”
“In less time than it takes to read the article, 17 people will be killed by a firearm.”
As soon as I saw that I stopped reading the article. I just saved 17 lives!!!