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Central Pennsylvania faith leaders call for an end to the gun violence

Patriot-News - 9/15/2022

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says firearm-related injuries are now the number one cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States. And The Very Rev. Dr. Amy D. Welin, dean of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Cathedral in Harrisburg, says the situation has become “intolerable” in our region.

Weilen and other faith leaders in the region gathered near St. Stephen’s Episcopal Cathedral Wednesday to call for an intensive interfaith effort to address the crisis that they say is only getting worse throughout the nation.

The event was jointly hosted by Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based group headquartered in Philadelphia working to prevent gun violence, and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Miller said Heeding God’s Call decided to reach out to interfaith leaders around the country after 19 children and two adults were killed in the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Audrey Scanlon, Bishop of the Episcopal church’s Harrisburg Diocese and Welin said the St. Stephen’s congregation was galvanized to take action after an Aug. 7 shooting behind their church. Harrisburg police charged a 16-year-old boy in connection with the shooting. The youth also suffered three gunshot wounds in the incident.

Miller called on the faith community to pressure lawmakers to address gun violence amongst the youth.

“People that are too young are able to acquire handguns anywhere in the state and it’s something we believe is wrong. There are things that the legislative can do about it but refuses to,” said Miller. “The level of gun violence in the state and the country continues to rise and something needs to be done about it.”

Welin also pleaded for an end to gun violence and a change in firearm laws.

“There is no reason for this to continue. We need to address our public policy. The argument that we can’t change the law because it infringes on people’s personal rights holds no credibility,” said Welin. “This is an important change that needs to happen.”

The Rev. Eric Jackson, chair of Harrisburg chapter of Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence, also called for faith leaders to do more to convince state legislators to pass stronger gun laws.

“This is an interfaith movement, this is not one denomination, it’s not one faith group, it’s everybody; because we’re talking about families. Families are impacted when someone is killed by gun violence,” said Jackson.

“We can’t wait until something happens. We have to be preventative and proactive about it,” said Jackson.

Tina Nixon, vice president of Mission Effectiveness at UPMC, joined the faith leaders and called gun violence a “public health crisis.”

“We need to link our arms together and walk forward to address this crisis.”

“When you talk about the impacts that trauma has, we know over the past two years we’ve seen a mental health crisis increase in our youth, and we’re working to address that throughout our community by providing individuals especially our faith community, with the tools to help us address that,” said Nixon.

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