In December 1992, a student went on a school shooting rampage at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Mass. Among those murdered were Galen Gibson, an 18-year-old student from Gloucester, and the friend of my friend Amanda Cook. Galen’s father, Gregory Gibson, another friend of mine, wrote a book about the loss of his son, “Gone Boy: A Walkabout.”
Galen Gibson’s murder continues to haunt them. And as more and more mass shootings are perpetrated across our country, like many of us, they wrestle with the question of why our nation seems uninterested in doing anything to prevent these killings.
On Thursday, June 2, Amanda organized Gloucester Wears Orange for National Gun Violence Awareness Day—including a proclamation from the mayor, shop owners filling their windows with the color orange (the movement’s signature color), and held a vigil in front of Gloucester’s Unitarian Universalist Church (pictured here).
“Let us keep raising out voices,” Amanda Cook wrote. “Until gun violence is seen and understood as a problem there will be no change. Let us speak up until our that change is made.”
Previously: “We Can End Gun Violence Rally” at Massachusetts State House, Dec. 12, 2015.
