Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton said 91 people die from gun violence every day in the United States.
And that’s just the death count, excluding all other injuries from similar accidents.
“This is simply unacceptable in a civilized society,” Hamilton said in an email.
That’s why he said he’s promoting the Wear Orange campaign Thursday, National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Across the U.S., local landmarks will be turning orange, the release states, including the Empire State Building in New York City and the downtown transit center in Bloomington.
Hamilton will officially recognize the day at noon June 2 in the Courthouse Square in downtown Bloomington, by the Sophia Travis Memorial.
The event, which will include a speech from Hamilton and a #WearOrange photo booth, will take place from noon to 1 p.m.
“As mayor of Bloomington, my first priority is public safety,” Hamilton said. “Since Americans are 25 times more likely to be murdered with guns than people in other developed countries, this is an issue to which all leaders should be paying attention.”
John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety and a board member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said in the release he’s grateful to all the mayors stepping up and taking part in acknowledging the day and promoting safe gun use.
“Mayors across the U.S. fight to keep their communities safe every day,” he said in a Wear Orange release, “So it’s no surprise they’re stepping up once again for National Gun Violence Awareness Day.”
The Wear Orange campaign didn’t start at such a national level, though. According to the release, it was started in 2013 by a group of teenagers at a South Side Chicago high school who had lost a classmate.
They asked everyone to wear orange to remember her: “the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others and a color that reflects the value of human life,” the release explains.
Wear Orange now consists of more than 200 nonprofits, elected officials and others who work to keep gun violence as low as possible.
Hamilton said he had heard of the Wear Orange campaign and their “common sense message against gun violence” before, so he said he was happy to meet with a group of young mothers who lead the local effort against gun violence.
He said we need to raise awareness as a cohesive society to keep guns out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership.
“I hope that each Bloomington resident who hears the Wear Orange message considers their own gun safety practices and the gun safety practices in the homes where children play,” he said. “We must work together to keep each other safe from gun violence.”
