Existing comment:
Why orange?
National Gun Violence Awareness Day
June 4, 2021
The Cathedral "wears orange" with orange lights on National Gun Violence Awareness Day to honor victims and survivors of gun violence and to show support for common-sense laws to prevent continued gun violence.
Orange is the color Hadikya Pendleton's friends wore in her honor after she was shot and killed in Chicago. Pendleton was a 15-year-old honor student, gunned down in a public park just a week after she and her high school band marched in President Obama's 2013 inaugural parade.
Tonight we toll the Bourdon bell 120 times, representing the average number of deaths each day by guns in 2020.
In 2020, 43,554 people were killed by guns:
* An increase of 10% from 2019
* 55% (24,156) were suicide
* Americans are 25% more likely to be killed in a gun homicide than residents of other high income countries
* Emotional toll of gun violence on individuals and communities is unmeasurable and lasts for generations
Gun injury statistics are unreliable but:
* estimates suggest injuries are roughly 2-3 times more than deaths
* average hospitalization stay costs $95,000
* annual health care spending for gun-related injuries is roughly $2.8 billion -- $175-200 billion if indirect costs such as long-term healthcare, loss of productivity, and policing costs are included. |