The goal of “Light and Unite” is to call attention to the devastating gun violence crisis sweeping the United States. For that reason, Town Hall will be illuminated orange on the night of November 1st through November 6th, just one month after the deadliest mass shooting in modern history.
Gun violence has been a public health crisis in the United States for years. An average of 93 Americans are killed with guns every day, and hundreds more are injured. What’s more, there have been at least 84 mass shootings -- incidents in which four or more victims are shot and killed, excluding the shooter -- since Sandy Hook alone. On average, there have been at least 18 mass shootings a year since 2009.
Everytown for Gun Safety, the organization behind the “#WearOrange” gun violence awareness campaign and is working to promote it across the country. The effort focuses on the color orange, because it is the traditional color worn by hunters to protect themselves and others from gunfire, and was adopted as a symbol of the movement seeking sensible gun regulation after the death of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old killed in Chicago in 2013.
Lighting prominent buildings across the country in orange will not only honor the victims killed and injured in the thousands of senseless acts of gun violence annually in the United States, but will also serve as a nightly reminder of the lack of action on the part of federal leaders in response to this epidemic.
