Community and religious leaders call for end of gun violence
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — June is National Gun Violence Awareness Month, and throughout the country, more than 120 people are killed by guns every day, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
In recent weeks, there's been a lot of attention on the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial, but we experience gun violence every day in our communities. On Thursday night, a group of community and religious leaders gathered to say we need to pay attention all the time.
Terrell Thomas of the Isaiah Project is a survivor himself.
"He's shooting, he's shooting and the bullets won't stop," Thomas said. "My brother at that time jumped over me, shields me and begins to get shot. I can feel the bullets going through his body."
He and others shared their personal stories at a quarterly meeting of the Clergy Council of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence at a community center in Pittsburgh's Hill District.
Jonathan Perlman is a survivor of the 2018 synagogue shooting, where a man killed 11 worshippers from the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations.
"Everybody wants to talk about it because when mass shootings happen, we are riveted to the newspapers and to television. We want to know more and might want to know how that felt to be a part of a mass shooting," Perlman said.
He's the rabbi of New Light, and as a survivor, he's decided to speak out against gun violence. Not just mass shootings, but the daily shots fired on our streets, striking our children.
"I said, 'I'm tired of feeling sorry as a victim in this mass shooting because I see that every single day children are being hit by firearms,'" Perlman said, describing a realization he had last year.
He, like others, want change.
"Our job as parents is to make sure that our kids survive to a point where they're going to make adult decisions," Dana Kellerman, policy director for Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence, said.
"We must bring down the strongholds of violence over our city and nation and over our young people," Reverend Eileen Smith of South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace said.
They feel it will only happen if they come together to make their voices heard.
"Only our outrage will be able to get things moving again," Perlman said.
A report released last year says Pittsburgh continues to see a steady increase in gun violence. It rose 13 percent from 2021 to 2022 when including non-fatal shootings and homicides by firearms.
