Mayor Tishaura O. Jones Joins Municipalities Across the Country in Declaring June 3 “Gun Violence Awareness Day” in City of St. Louis

Today, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones declared June 3, 2022 “Gun Violence Awareness Day” in the City of St. Louis, joining municipalities across the country in honoring the more than 110 lives lost to gun violence in the United States every day as well as the hundreds wounded. The proclamation comes the day after President Joe Biden delivered a major speech on gun violence and called for an assault rifle ban following mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York.

“Far too many St. Louisans have felt the pain of gun violence touch their lives and communities,” said Mayor Tishaura O. Jones. “Americans shouldn’t have to fear taking a trip to the grocery store or sending their kids to school. The horrific mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo reaffirmed our call for action: The Senate must protect our families from gun violence by expanding background checks to all gun sales, regulating assault weapons, and passing a federal red flag law.”

Mayor Jones joined fellow Mayors Against Illegal Guns Co-Chairs Mayor Brandon Scott (Baltimore, MD), Mayor Tim Kelly (Chattanooga, TN), Former Mayor Steve Benjamin (Columbia, SC), Mayor Quinton Lucas (Kansas City, MO), Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard (Mount Vernon, NY), Mayor Eric Adams (New York, NY), Former Mayor Michael Tubbs (Stockton, CA), Mayor Tishaura Jones (St. Louis, MO), Mayor Jane Castor (Tampa, FL), and Mayor Regina Romero (Tucson, AZ) last week in urging the Senate to take action to protect families from gun violence. The mayors emphasized the need to pass a federal red flag law, expand background checks, and regulate assault weapons.

Missouri’s preemption laws restrict municipalities like St. Louis from implementing their own commonsense gun safety legislation, and the legislature’s continued loosening of gun laws has made the state less safe. The Missouri Independent noted last year that the State of Missouri’s repeal of permit to purchase “led to at least a 25%, and as much as a 47%, increase in firearms homicides and a 23.5% increase in firearms suicides in Missouri in the years since it passed.”

The first Friday each June is designated as National Gun Violence Awareness Day to honor Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old teenager from Chicago, Illinois who marched in the January 2013 presidential inaugural parade and was tragically shot and killed just weeks later. To honor Hadiya, a group of her friends came together with their classmates to commemorate her life by wearing orange, which leaders and advocates across the country are doing today.

A copy of the proclamation language is attached.

Documents

• 2022 National Gun Violence Awareness Day