Gun Violence
Handgun image, Nomad_Soul / Shutterstock.com
All children growing up in poverty are noble, beautiful flowers growing through cracks in concrete sidewalks. They are vulnerable to the frost of hunger, the hard rains of sickness, and the crushing footsteps of violence.
Marian Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund remind us in Protect Children Not Guns 2012 that 5,740 children and teens were killed by guns in 2008 and 2009.
Those children would have filled 229 public school classrooms of 25 students each. Because of gun violence, desks now sit empty that might have held the next great scientist or writer or parent for the world.
[Editors' note: Below is a hymn written by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette lamenting gun violence. We hope you find it helpful in light of the shootings in Arizona.]
At about midnight we heard the shots ring out. My friend ran to the door and I heard him yell, "Shane, a kid has been shot, come down." As we looked down the street we could see a young man staggering as he walked down our block. Then his knees gave out and he fell to the ground. We called for an ambulance and ran outside to be with the boy.
This week, The New York Times ran an editorial about H.R. 6691, follow-up legislation to the June Supreme Court decision on D.C.'s gun ban. After reading the editorial, I made a resolution: [...]
Even though we don't often weigh in on local D.C. political issues, the Sojourners policy team made an exception on a new piece of legislation that would have a direct impact on gun violence in the District. We signed Sojourners on to a faith-group letter last week opposing the bill described in this [...]