Putting faces on the many lost to gun violence

Guns are used in eight out of 10 murders in Philadelphia. And of the approximately 556 murders in Pennsylvania in 1997, about 400 occurred in Philadelphia. Gun safety advocates certainly have their work cut out for them. These facts brought the realities of gun violence to life last night in Mayer Hall as part of First Monday 2000, a national event sponsored in part by the Alliance for Justice and Physicians for Social Responsibility that seeks to inspire and mobilize new advocates to further the cause for justice. This year's theme was "Unite to End Gun Violence." Seven undergraduates attended the event. "Being a homicide detective is a busy job in Philadelphia," said Penn Det. Supervisor Bill Danks, a former Philadelphia Police homicide detective, who spoke at the event. The numbers soon turned into faces, as the evening began with the video America Up In Arms. Co-directed by Rory Kennedy -- one of Robert F. Kennedy's daughters -- the film profiled the tragic path that gun violence has traveled across America. In the film, parents bravely told of losing their children to guns, in one case even at the hand of their son's teenage friend, all in trying to make a difference in the war against guns. "If you are prepared to bring a gun into your house, think very seriously if you have children there... or anybody else there," said Danks, echoing the point that 10 young people die from gun violence each day. "When you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," said Matthew Schwartz, a member of the Philadelphia chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who represented the doctors' take on gun violence. As coordinator of the Physicians Adopt-A-School program, he recruits first- and second-year medical students to be mentors to students in local elementary schools, and to discuss the dangers of gun violence. A common question during the event was how to advance the issue of gun violence on college campuses such as Penn. "You need to take on something and be passionate about it," Schwartz said. "When older adults see younger adults be passionate about something without being paid to do it -- it's very compelling." "Should we get rid of cars because people die in them?" Schwartz asked. "No, but we got seat belts mandatory, crumple-zones mandatory and trunk releases mandatory." Some suggested solutions to improving gun safety included gun chamber indicators and trigger locks, as well as the passage of laws. "I grew up in a town that was very safe, and I realized that it couldn't be that way around here when so many people were dying," said College junior Leah Sheaffer, who organized the event after she was inspired by last May's Million Mom March for gun violence in Washington, D.C.