2020 ECW Province V Annual Meeting Speaker Profiles 1 The Rev. Rosalind Hughes Church of the Epiphany Euclid, OH Responding to Gun Violence O God whose Name is love and whose Word is welcome: You have made each of us in your own image. You have given us breath so that we can contemplate the climb out of the valley of the shadow of death. You have connected us in ways beyond our imagination, threading us together with your Spirit so that even when we are apart, our lives support one another; so that your love, unbound, may grow between us. Even as we shelter from a different kind of harm, we pray that you will continue to comfort and console all who grieve the gun violence that besets us. We ask your inspiration for those who act on your command to love your children, to care for your creation, to heal this nation. May your will win out here as in heaven. Deliver us from the evil of gun violence and all evil ideas and ideologies that inspire it. Let your Spirit of life and truth be our only fire power. Let your love be our only temptation. Let your presence be our protection and our provocation in this and at all times and in all places. Amen 2 Bishops United Against Gun Violence is a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. Bishop Steven Miller, Diocese of Milwaukee – one of 3 conveners Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, Diocese of Indianapolis Bishop Tom Breidenthal, Diocese of Southern Ohio Bishop Wendell Gibbs (retired), Diocese of Michigan Bishop Mark Hollingsworth, Diocese of Ohio Bishop Whayne Hougland, Diocese of Western Michigan Bishop Jeff Lee, Diocese of Chicago Bishop Bonnie Perry, Diocese of Michigan Bishop Rayford Ray, Diocese of Northern Michigan Bishop Cate Waynick, (provisional) Diocese of Eastern Michigan Four leaders of Bishops United Against Gun Violence have published an op-ed in Religion News Service expressing concern about the increase in gun sales during the coronavirus pandemic. "As our nation struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, gun sales are surging," they write, "Such sales are always seasonal, but according to the FBI's analysis of data from licensed gun stores, Americans bought 1 million more guns last month than are normally sold at this time of year." Bishopsagainstgunviolence.org 3 Pushing guns during a pandemic April 8, 2020 Bishops United Against Gun Violence Religion News Service (RNS) religionnews.com Semiautomatic handguns are displayed at Duke's Sport Shop on March 25, 2020, in New Castle, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) (RNS) — In the midst of one plague, we are sowing the seeds of another. As our nation struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, gun sales are surging. Such sales are always seasonal, but according to the FBI’s analysis of data from licensed gun stores, Americans bought 1 million more guns last month than are normally sold at this time of year. Indeed, the nation’s licensed gun sellers moved more merchandise in March than in any month in recent his- tory, save for January 2013, the month after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the month in which President Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term. According to a Newsy/Ipsos survey, 1 in 20 households has purchased a gun in response to the pandemic. As bishops of the Episcopal Church, we are concerned that the proliferation of weapons in our society will result not in greater safety, but in greater violence. The reasons for this surge are easily understood, but they are troubling, nonetheless. People fear a breakdown in the social order. People fear that virus-depleted law enforcement agencies will respond more slowly to calls for help. People fear that nonviolent offenders released from prisons where the pandemic is spreading rapidly will turn to crime when they are free. But every gun purchase comes with attendant risk, especially during this time when most U.S. residents are being asked to stay at home. A 2014 review in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that having a firearm in the home, even when properly stored, triples the risk a resident of the home will die by suicide. This is a particular concern at a time of social isolation and economic uncertainty. People protest the National Rifle Association’s influence in national gun control policies. (Photo by Josh Lopez/Creative Commons) 4 About 4.5 million women report being threatened by a partner with a gun. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser has a firearm. These numbers suggest that women sheltering with gun- owning abusers are in greater danger than ever. A 2015 study in the Journal of Urban Health estimated as many as 4.6 million children in America live in homes with unsecured guns, and children are home all day now because schools are not in session. Bishops United Against Gun Violence, the network we represent, supports a number of commonsense gun reforms that enjoy high levels of bipartisan support. Our agenda includes background checks on all gun pur- chasers, handgun purchaser licensing, restrictions on gun ownership by domestic abusers and safe storage of firearms. Our country would be a safer place today if these policies were in effect. Yet in this moment of mutual need, we are troubled to find the National Rifle Association stoking fears of social disintegration to sell more guns. The NRA’s aggressive lobbying to keep gun stores open while other businesses are closed, coupled with its litigious response to governors who have not granted them this privileged status, makes it clear, once again, that it values the interest of gun manufacturers over the safety of our country. Legislation that could help protect lives is long overdue but unlikely to be enacted while Congress is rightly occupied by the COVID-19 pandemic. So, we write today not only as advocates, but as pastors, imploring you to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Just as you take care to protect yourself against infection in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, so we urge you to protect yourself and your loved ones from circumstances in which gun violence is likely to oc- cur. If you have a gun in your home, is it properly secured? If your child is visiting other homes, do you know whether a gun is present and whether it is secured? Are you aware of someone forced to shelter with a potentially violent family member? What can you do to help this person stay safe? Do you know someone suffering from depression that might be heightened by the sense of powerlessness that affects us all during this pandemic? How can you help to ease this isolation? As advocates, we remain committed to revising our country’s appallingly lax gun laws. We lament the cur- rent surge in gun purchases, and we urge you to join us in mitigating the violence that accompanies it through small but courageous acts of attention, compassion, and concern. (Bishops Ian Douglas of Connecticut, Daniel Gutiérrez of Pennsylvania and Steven Miller of Milwaukee are co-conveners of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops that advocates policies and legislation to reduce the number of people in the United States killed or wounded by gunfire. Bishop Mark Beckwith is a founding co-convener. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.) 5 SOJO.NET WHY I'VE MADE 100 ORANGE STOLES ADDRESSING GUN VIOLENCE BY ROSALIND C. HUGHES SEP 26, 2019 Outside of the Ohio State House on Sept. 18, an eclectic group had gathered to demand that the legislators #DoSomething about gun violence. Across the square, I noticed an orange stole draped across a deacon. I have been making orange clergy stoles for gun violence awareness and sending them out to friends and strangers alike since 2016, when a colleague seeded the idea of bringing the #WearOrange movement to church. The #WearOrange movement began with a group of teenagers in Chicago whose friend, Hadiya Pendleton, was shot to death in a park near her school in 2013. Hadiya was 15. Her murder made the headlines because she had played with her school band at President Obama’s second Inauguration celebrations only the week before. First Lady Michelle Obama attended her funeral. A few weeks earlier, the world was reeling from the murders of 20 small children and six of their trusted adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Three months after Hadiya’s missed 16th birthday, a man with a fake pass killed 12 people and injured eight more at the Washington Navy Yard, a military facility replete with guards and guns. In May 2014, a man killed seven strangers and himself after failing to gain entry to a sorority house in Santa Barbara, Calif. Two weeks after the first National Gun Violence Awareness (#WearOrange) Day in June 2015, a young man intent on igniting a race war sat quietly through a Bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, S.C., before murdering nine Christians during their prayer. President Obama sang “Amazing Grace” at the pastor’s funeral. When publicity began for the second national #WearOrange Day, my friend and colleague, the Rev. C. Eric Funston, posted on Facebook that if he had an orange stole, he would wear it to church the next Sunday. Later, he told me that while we may not think of orange as a standard liturgical color, once it was an accepted alternative to the green of “ordinary time.” What’s more, “amongst those who assign symbolic or allegorical meaning to colors, orange is considered the color of warning and prophecy.” 6 I heard Eric’s call to raise up the awareness of gun violence within the church that preaches peace and life and offered to make us an orange stole each.