Jacobs School, partners observe Gun Violence Awareness Day

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB joined local partners in observing National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Weekend.

Noting the recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas, the school encouraged its members to wear orange June 4-5 to honor those who have died or have been injured by gun violence.

“Any gun violence is intolerable. But racially motivated killings and school shootings are especially abominable. We must advocate for systemic changes to stop senseless firearms deaths, which are all too common,” Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, said in an email Thursday to the Jacobs School community.

Additionally, the school illuminated its atrium orange on June 3, National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

“The color orange is symbolic,” Brashear said in her message. “It’s the color hunters wear to increase their visibility and improve safety while hunting. It’s the color Chicago teens donned to honor their friend, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, after she was killed in a park by a stray bullet.”

Partner organizations, such UBMD Physicians’ Group, Kaleida Health and Erie Country Medical Center, took similar actions over the weekend.

Citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Brashear noted that 45,222 people in the United States died from gun-related injuries during 2020. She also noted that firearms became the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers in 2020, and that nearly 53 people are killed each day by a firearm in the United States, according to the data.

“These frequent deaths, and the gun violence epidemic, cannot continue,” Brashear said.