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Wear orange today to speak out against gun violence in N.J.

Bishop Mark Beckwith #WearOrange
By: 
The Rt. Rev. Mark M. Beckwith
NINA NICHOLSON PHOTO

[The Star-Ledger] More than 34,500 people were shot to death in this country last year, some 21,000 of them by their own hand. An additional 27,000 are living with the wounds they sustained. The casualties roughly equal the populations of Bayonne, East Orange or Vineland. But sometimes to comprehend the degree to which gun violence has degraded our culture, it helps to focus on just one life.

Hadiya Pendleton, 15, was a drum majorette and an honors student at Kings College prep school in Chicago. She marched in President Barack Obama's inaugural parade in January 2013, and two weeks later she was shot to death on the south side of Chicago in what was apparently a case of mistaken identity. But her story doesn't end there.

Hadiya's friends asked their classmates and their community to commemorate her life by wearing orange, the color hunters choose for safety. The seeds those grieving students planted have grown into a national movement. Today, June 2, millions of Americans will wear orange to observe the second National Gun Violence Awareness Day and to demonstrate our commitment to reducing gun violence in our communities. And in some of our churches, clergy will wear orange stoles on Sunday and preach about gun violence.

Bishops United Against Gun Violence is a partner in the Wear Orange movement. We are a group of more than 60 Episcopal bishops who support common-sense gun violence prevention measures that enjoy broad-based support among gun owners and non-gun owners alike. As religious leaders, we are sometimes asked why we involve ourselves in divisive political issues such as this one. Our answer is two-fold: First, to speak in the language of one of Jesus' best-loved parables, we must not only be good Samaritans, ministering to the man who fell in among thieves; we must also make safe the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, and that is an inherently political business. And second, this issue is not as divisive as it may seem.

Overwhelming majorities of Americans, including large majorities of gun owners and members of the National Rifle Association, support requiring background checks for all gun purchases. The numbers fluctuate from poll to poll, but seldom dip below 85 percent.

In a survey conducted last year by researchers with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, 79 percent of respondents favored prohibiting people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning a gun, 73 percent supported prohibiting a person who had been convicted of a serious crime as a juvenile from owning a gun for 10 years, and 70 percent backed the same sanction on those who have been convicted of domestic violence.

There is a great deal of common ground in our country on gun violence prevention measures, yet many of our legislators will not act, and the poorest and most vulnerable people in our country pay the price:

  • Almost 560 American women are shot to death by a romantic partner every year. Homicide is the leading cause of death in the U.S. among African-American females 15-45 and the seventh-leading cause of premature death among women overall.
  • More than 750 children — 75 percent of them under the age of 12 — were killed by gunfire in 2015.
  • Roughly half of the people killed with guns each year in the U.S. are black men, who constitute just 6 percent of the population.

Congress and state legislatures should adopt common-sense measures that would make it harder for people who should not have guns to get them, and make it more difficult for accidental shootings to take lives.

These measures include: mandatory background checks on all gun purchases; licensing requirements on handgun purchases; restrictions on gun ownership by domestic abusers and others convicted of violent crimes; effective federal legislation against gun trafficking; and the encouragement of "smart gun" technology.

We must demonstrate to our legislators that there is a political price to be paid for ignoring the ravages of gun violence. Wearing orange today — and telling the world about it on social media (#­WearOrange) — is one way to make our commitment to reducing gun violence vividly clear.

The Rt. Rev. Mark M. Beckwith is bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, with more than 100 congregations in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morris, Passaic, Sussex, Warren and Union counties. He is a convener of Bishops United Against Gun Violence.