Pull out your tiger, tangerine, carrot, and other orange-colored clothes for Wear Orange Weekend June 3-5, a simple but powerful countrywide stand against gun violence.
Several Seattle-based organizations, including Grandmothers Against Gun Violence, Alliance for Gun Responsibility and El Centro de la Raza, are supporting the campaign by urging the public — especially parents and students — to show solidarity by dressing in orange all weekend. They hope the national campaign will both raise awareness regarding the country’s gun violence crisis and push Congress to pass meaningful legislation to address it.
[ For more ideas, read “How to take action against gun violence” ]
Pushing passage of the Protecting our Kids Act
Organizations have called on federal lawmakers to pass House Resolution 7910, the Protecting Our Kids Act. The act is, supporters say, the first meaningful gun safety/gun violence prevention bill in nearly a decade. Among other things, Protecting our Kids would:
- raise the lawful age to purchase a semiautomatic centerfire rifle from 18 to 21
- establish requirements to regulate the storage of firearms on residential premises and create criminal penalties for violation of the requirements
Several Seattle landmarks will light up in orange over the weekend to show support for responsible gun laws. Lumen Field, T-Mobile Park, and Climate Pledge Arena are among the facilities that will flash orange. The top of the Seattle Space Needle already sports an anti-gun violence hue, although its orange paint job was completed as part of the Needle’s 60th anniversary celebration.
History of Wear Orange
The campaign is named after Hadiya Pendleton, who marched in President Barack Obama’s second inaugural parade in 2013 and was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago a week later.
Hadiya’s friends commemorated her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others. Wear Orange Weekend is now observed every June to honor the more than 40,000 people killed with guns and approximately 85,000 who are shot and wounded every year in the United States.
Washington deaths
According to state and county data, including annual King County Shots Fired Reports, nearly 900 people were killed by guns in Washington State in 2020. King County had 69 firearms deaths in 2020, 88 in 2021 and more than 20 in the first quarter of 2022.
