Between June 2 and July 7, 2024, Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, will display a memorial made from T-shirts bearing the names of Harris County gun violence victims. Photo: Hannah Atkins Romero
[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal dioceses and churches nationwide are participating in anti-gun violence and pro-gun safety events in June in observance of National Gun Violence Awareness Month and Silence the Violence Month of Action.
“We’re falling short of God’s dream for us to live wholeheartedly in holiness and peace,” the Rev. Hannah Atkins Romero, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, Diocese of Texas, told Episcopal Service. “In order to respond to that truth about the very essence of our being and God’s love for us, and also Christ’s embodiment, we must stand up for human dignity and for a life free of violence and bullying.”
Between June 2 and July 7, Trinity will display a memorial made from T-shirts bearing the names of Harris County gun violence victims. The installation, which is separate from Trinity’s permanent gun violence memorial, is a collaboration with members of Texas Impact, an interfaith grassroots network of religious groups committed to providing outreach tools to support public policy education and advocacy initiatives. The T-shirts will hang from a clothesline outside the church, which will also be lit up at night with an orange light to “enhance our visual witness against gun violence.”
Orange has been the color of gun violence awareness since 2013, when Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old high school student, was shot to death on the south side of Chicago just a week after marching in former President Barack Obama’s second inaugural parade. Her friends asked people to honor Pendleton by wearing orange — the color hunters choose for safety — on her birthday, June 2. Their cause was taken up by gun violence prevention groups around the country who in 2015 promoted the first National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
This year, Wear Orange Weekend takes place June 7-9. Atkins Romero said parishioners will wear orange, but the T-shirts that are part of the memorial will vary depending on the cause of death. White T-shirts will represent victims of suicide and green T-shirts will represent victims of accidental death or homicide.
More than 4,100 Harris County residents have died from gun violence since 2018, according to data compiled by Texas Impact. Statewide on average, 4,122 Texans die by guns annually, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nationwide, about 44,341 people die by guns every year. As of May 31, 6,864 people have died from gun violence in 2024, including 182 from mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an American nonprofit that catalogs every gun-related death in the United States. A mass shooting is any shooting in which at least four people are shot.
Northern Michigan Bishop Rayford Ray – a member of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail gun violence – told ENS in a statement that it’s Christians’ obligation to encourage and engage in gun violence prevention efforts.
“Our faith calls us to respect and honor all of life as sacred. …Working towards creating a safer society by actively working to end gun violence is our calling as Episcopalians and Christians,” he said. “We have experienced too much pain and loss in this nation. Let us support sensible gun laws that promote safety and prevention as we come together to heal from the trauma endured by too many of us.”
Most U.S. gun deaths are by suicide, which the CDC classifies as a public health issue in rural areas. Over the last 20 years, suicide rates have been higher in rural areas than urban areas. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is no exception, which is why Marna Franson, the Diocese of Northern Michigan’s missioner, works closely with regional suicide prevention organizations.
Based on information gathered by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, “if you can lock up your gun, you can sometimes stop the impulse for suicide because you have to find the key to unlock the gun,” Franson told ENS. “Beyond suicide, having guns locked when not in use prevents children from getting shot by accident.”
In response to the high suicide by gun rates in the Upper Peninsula, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Marquette will host a gun lock blessing and distribution event on June 8. Each bag will contain a trigger lock and a cable lock, as well as information about gun safety and suicide prevention. Franson said this initiative emphasizes gun safety rather than gun violence prevention. It also “acknowledges and respects” the Upper Peninsula’s hunting heritage.
“If you don’t buy a gun, it’s often handed down to you, and for many families it’s a rite of passage to get your first buck during hunting season to provide food for your families,” Franson said. “We have to be realistic with the way we communicate with people about gun safety and gun locks depending on their culture around firearms.”
Franson said the Diocese of Northern Michigan is not promoting Wear Orange Weekend because the diocese instead plans to promote wearing orange on Sept. 30 for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known Orange Shirt Day, an annual day of remembrance and awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women, as well as Indigenous boarding school victims.
In the Diocese of West Missouri, the Church of St. Luke the Beloved Physician in Excelsior Springs will also hand out free gun locks to promote gun safety on June 8. The event will feature a gun safety presentation by an Excelsior Springs police officer. Every participant is encouraged to wear orange.
“I think that everybody should be safe. It doesn’t matter if you have a gun, but for goodness sakes, make them safe. Lock your gun up and keep it away from children when you’re not using it,” Shannon Morgan, a lay leader at St. Luke’s told ENS.
In Webster Groves, Missouri Bishop Deon Johnson will speak at the Wear Orange to Prevent Gun Violence March & Rally on June 9. Participants will gather at Webster Groves Presbyterian Church and march to Emmanuel Episcopal Church.
On June 29, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, Diocese of Michigan, will host an ecumenical remembrance, education and action event addressing gun violence. The event will include a presentation on how people can educate and advocate for enforcing Michigan’s gun laws after the remembrance service. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and other nonprofits are sponsoring the event.
“One of the ways that we can serve our communities is to be the peacemakers,” Jim Mogensen, a St. Aidan’s parishioner and community activist, told ENS. “It’s the right thing to do and also a good way for congregations to go out into the community and work with some amazing people for justice.”
In Lower Michigan, the Detroit-based Diocese of Michigan has been active with gun violence prevention efforts in recent years. Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry, a co-convener of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, was instrumental in helping to launch End Gun Violence Michigan, a grassroots group credited with helping two of three gun safety laws pass in Michigan that went into effect in February.
The events at St. Aidan’s and St. Paul’s are part of a statewide series of more than 30 scheduled gun safety and violence prevention events taking place in June for the Silence the Violence Month of Action. Church of the Messiah, an Episcopal church in Detroit, started the Silence the Violence campaign in 2008. Trinity Episcopal Church in Niles will host an active shooter mitigation event on June 3 and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in St. Joseph will host a candlelight vigil for gun violence victims on June 14.
“Jesus sent himself out to spread the Gospel, the Good News throughout the world,” the Rev. Tom Ferguson, vicar of St. Aidan’s, told ENS. “We need to be in the community and engage in compassionate care to end suffering, to care for people and make sure that no one is oppressed or afraid.”
Episcopalians can learn more about the church’s gun safety legislation dating to 1976 here.
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.