Opinion: Centre County Interfaith Coalition for Gun Safety working to make communities safer
More than 40 years ago, I was a student chaplain at a hospital in Oklahoma. Late one night, I was called to respond to a shooting victim — a little boy from my hometown. As I entered the ICU and stood by the 6 year old’s bed, he looked at me, eyes full of confusion and pain. The bullet had gone through his neck and into his spinal cord. I will never forget the boy’s eyes or watching his father run down the hospital hall, frantic to get to his son.
As I talked and prayed with the father later, he told me that his son had been shot by his other son, only two years older, when they were playing with an unsecured gun at his home. The little boy survived and several years later I learned that he had been in my mother’s classroom at school. She worked with children with disabilities and he was in the wheelchair that he would have for the rest of his life. I never knew what happened to his older brother, but I prayed for him as often as I prayed for the injured little boy. Neither life would ever be the same.
Accidents happen. But accidents like the tragic one above don’t have to happen. We can make our families and our communities safer and that is the goal of the Centre County Interfaith Coalition for Gun Safety. Our mission “is to build a peaceful society free from preventable gun violence. We are an alliance of local religious leaders and community members who educate on issues related to gun violence, advocate for responsible and safe gun ownership, and collaborate with local, state and federal officials on matters of gun safety. We are an interfaith organization, emphasizing the importance of unity and cooperation among different religious communities. Our goal is to create a society where all members can live without fear of gun violence.” The Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, recently named gun violence a public health crisis and firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the US. We must do better.
Too often, the conversation about firearms has focused on gun control. But when we think about what we can do to make our communities and our homes safer, there are some things most of us agree on. Things like the safe and secure storage of firearms in homes. Things like stronger background checks. Things like keeping guns out of the hands of those who are a risk to themselves or to others.
Our goals within the Interfaith Coalition are to find that common ground and to create safe spaces for conversations that can be challenging. We work to educate ourselves and our religious communities about the issues around gun violence and gun safety so that our homes and our houses of worship can be safe spaces to live, to worship, and to have those difficult conversations rooted in our common values.
This past April was the one-year anniversary of the Interfaith Coalition and we have been busy! In the past year, we have had educational programs within worshiping communities and the community at large about concrete ways to address gun violence, including the distribution of gun locks. We have engaged our faith communities in letter writing campaigns around legislation designed to keep communities safer. And we’ve met with local elected representatives to explain who we are and why we are working to address gun violence.
Together, we can find ways to make our communities safer. We encourage you to join us by visiting our website, www.ccinterfaithforgunsafety.com.
The Rev. Anne K. Ard is a member of the Centre County Interfaith Coalition for Gun Safety. A Presbyterian Minister for over 40 years, she recently retired as the executive director of Centre Safe.
