GUNS IN AMERICA
Let’s ‘Wear Orange’ this weekend to stop gun violence
Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black employed “You’ve Got Time” as a theme song.
Several groups pushing back against gun violence, expect to see a sea of orange and time seems essential as Trenton faces a proliferation of shootings and murder.
Friday, June 5 arrives as National Gun Violence Awareness Day with supporters decked out in orange for a Wear Orange Weekend.
Reba Holley, founder of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America and now forging a community outreach role, attended a Peace Rally on Thursday hosted by the City of Trenton.
Holley downplayed any excitement connected with the Orange event although she recognized a silver lining.
“The only positive is that people are talking, alliances are growing and perhaps the awareness of what’s happening improves this should have happened a long time ago,” Holley explained.
“The gun violence has been going on and we’ve involved with this issue for so long that it’s tragic.”
The event at City Hall started exactly 24 hours after a gunman shot three people on nearby Wood St. The victims included a 12-year-old girl and two men in their 30s.
The juvenile suffered a stomach wound and needed surgery to remove a 12-inch portion of her intestine. Trenton has counted 15 gun murders in just over five months while shootings occur as news items regularly.
National Gun Violence Awareness Day exists as an initiative created by several gun reform organizations including Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence and Everytown for Gun Safety, a movement of Americans fighting for common-sense reforms to reduce gun violence.
Wear Orange Weekend started in 2015 to honor the life of Hadiya Pendleton, 15, who died after being shot two years prior in her hometown of Chicago.
Pendleton, an honor student at Chicago’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School and a majorette in the marching band, had performed at former President Barack Obama’s second inaugural parade in 2013. Her death came a week after that honor.
Friends honored Pendleton’s life by wearing orange, a color hunters don for safety.
Teska Frisby, a Trenton resident leading a local Orange initiative, said she hopes the weekend generates discussions and action.
Frisby played an influential role in a Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission decision to highlight in orange the Trenton Makes The World Takes Bridge for the weekend.
A special lighting ceremony will occur at 7 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday.
L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at LAParker@ Trentonian.com.