Community Members from Washington D.C. and Southern PA Form Urban/Rural Coalition for Gun Safety and Violence Reduction
[Waynesboro, PA]– December 16, 2019 – We are a diverse group of citizens from the Washington D.C. area and Franklin and Adams Counties, in Pennsylvania, including both gun rights and gun violence prevention advocates. Our views on guns are as diverse as ourselves, but we have come together across what is often considered an unbridgeable divide to work on issues of gun-related violence and gun safety that affect our urban and rural communities in different ways.
We met together in person in Waynesboro, PA in September because levels of firearms-related violence in our communities are unacceptable. This violence has complex and varied causes and must therefore be addressed in complex and varied ways. Legislation alone cannot address it — community members with different ideological beliefs must work together to take action.
We will be meeting again in Washington D.C. in January to jointly design a media project to enable our communities to more easily access information that may help reduce gun-related violence. In addition to contributing to reducing gun-related violence in our own communities, we hope to offer a model for other communities wishing to work across the urban-rural divide on this and other public problems facing us as a nation.
Disclaimer: The statement above reflects a consensus view of the 10 program participants listed below and not necessarily the organizations with which they are affiliated.
Media Contact: Joseph Bubman, Urban Rural Action, jbubman@uraction.org
This Urban Rural Action program brings together firearms organizations and gun violence prevention advocates in Franklin County, PA; Adams County, PA; and Washington, DC to take joint action that improves gun safety and reduces violence. For more information on this program, see here.
