Decades of discourse: Friday is National Gun Violence Awareness Day
Snapshots from the 1970s and 1980s highlight the continued conversation around individual gun rights
June 6 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day, a day created to bolster and demonstrate the collective power of the gun violence prevention movement.
The Friday observance, a special emphasis day on the Presbyterian Planning Calendar, provides an opportunity to recommit to working for a world free of gun violence. June 6 also marks the beginning of Wear Orange Weekend, June 6-8, when people are encouraged to wear orange to honor the survivors of gun violence.
Each year for the past 11 years, hundreds of influencers, corporate partners, non-profit partners, landmarks, and elected officials participate in the conversation of the day, wear orange to honor survivors, and build community with those working to end gun violence.
The color-choice might seem peculiar to readers — why orange? For one thing, it’s the shade that hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others while chasing game. But there’s more to the story, and it starts with the loss of a young life. On January 29, 2013, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed at a playground in Chicago after just finishing her final exams. A week before, she’d attended and participated in President Barack Obama’s second inauguration — she was a majorette in her high school band, which performed during the events. First Lady Michelle Obama attended the funeral, and President Obama made mention of Pendleton’s murder in his 2013 State of the Union Address [which can be seen here beginning at 54:39]. In the grievous aftermath of this tragedy, Hadiya’s family and loved ones commemorated her life by donning orange clothing. Two years later, on June 2, 2015 — what would have been Hadiya’s 18 birthday — Wear Orange originated.
Here we are, a decade later, about to commemorate the 11th annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Will you be donning orange? In honor of the day, we have pulled a few images from the archives that highlight handgun discourse in the decades prior to the 21st century.
This image is of a 1975 rally against handguns held in Washington, D.C. Around 100 people participated in a Gun Victims March in support of legislation that would ban handguns from private ownership in the U.S. The caption tells us that the participants included “Persons representing the 24 religious, professional, service, labor and citizens groups which form the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.” The coalition, founded the year before by the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, included 15 religious organizations. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Coalition saw its membership jump from 24 to 44 groups.
Following the 1989 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in Stockton, California, the group changed its name to better reflect its position, becoming the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and revising its title to include assault weapons as well as handguns. The Coalition had nine guiding values; its mission was to “secure freedom from gun violence through research, strategic engagement, and effective policy advocacy.”
The legislation in question — the reason this photograph exists — was most likely the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975, which was enacted by the District of Columbia and went into effect in September 1976. However, in the 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the 1976 “handgun ban” violated Second Amendment rights, a ruling that marked a monumental shift in the interpretation of the right to bear arms, as previous to this ruling the “Supreme Court had never directly ruled on which interpretation of the Second Amendment was correct.”
During a 1968 press conference, when asked who their favorite American music group was, members of the Beatles answered: “Nilsson.” Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, pictured here with his four-year-old son, was a successful artist who wrote nine songs for the Monkees and was a good friend of John Lennon and Ringo Starr. In August 1981, when this picture was taken in his Bel Air, California, home, Nilsson was working to organize “an October march on Washington in support of proposed legislation banning handguns,” the caption informs us.
One cannot help but connect this image, and Nilsson’s drive to organize a protest march, with the March 30, 1981 attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life, as well as the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II on May 13 — two events from 1981 that inspired waves of protest and discourse concerning gun violence. Learn more about these happenings on the Presbyterian Historical Society blog, where a companion piece to this article has been published.
Decades of discourse has led to the creation of a 10-year campaign, now in its third year. Approved by the 225th General Assembly (2022), the Decade to End Gun Violence (2022–32) is a campaign “to be conducted at all levels of the church,” which would update educational resources, develop new liturgical resources and build up the church’s faith-based gun violence prevention advocacy. The same Assembly also approved a limited fund, administered by the Interim Unified Agency’s Office of Public Witness, to help PC(USA) congregations, mid councils, worshiping communities and institutions conduct events to combat gun violence, such as “Guns to Gardens” safe-surrender events, where weapons are turned into garden tools.
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