OPINION |
by Sue Walker, Ozark
Friday, June 3rd was National Gun Violence Awareness Day and it was the beginning of Wear Orange Weekend. By Wearing Orange, we honor the lives of people in the United States who are affected by gun violence. In 2020, the number of people killed by gun violence exceeded 40,000 — the highest rate of gun deaths in two decades and this was during COVID-19.
Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor after she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15 — just one week after performing at President Obama’s 2nd inaugural parade in 2013. It is also the color that hunters wear in the woods to prevent being shot by another hunter. I wear orange because every single day, 110 people are shot and killed and hundreds more are wounded.
We should all be free of gun violence, whether we’re shopping at the grocery store in Buffalo, NY, a church in Laguna Woods, CA, a medical facility in Tulsa, OK and most especially a child at an elementary school in Uvalde, TX! Instead, everyday gun violence has grown in our own communities.
I hope that everyday people will remember the millions of lives taken or forever changed by gun violence and demand action in their honor. Let’s work together to make this country safe for everyone from intimate partner violence, police violence, gun suicides, gun homicides and unintentional shootings.
Join me in demanding that our local, state and national leaders pass measures and implement policies that will end this senseless gun violence!