Take Action to Prevent Gun Violence

By our silence, by our willingness to compromise principle… by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, that killed 20 children and 8 adults, our hearts are broken. Although we are especially affected by the fact that so many of these victims were young children, we are mindful that this incident was but the latest in a long string of tragic and deadly incidents of gun violence. More recently, fifty people died in a nightclub patronized by Orlando, Florida’s LGBTQ community after a person opened fire with two assault weapons.

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has assembled a page of resources, Orlando, Boston, Newtown: Responding to Trauma, to help all of us process the Newtown shooting and its aftermath, emotionally and spiritually.

The purpose of this page is to help all of us understand how we can reduce the likelihood, or at least the frequency, of such tragic events by understanding the factors that lead to gun violence, what changes in public policy might mitigate or reduce gun violence, and how we and other people and communities of faith might advocate for such changes. UUA Witness Ministries will update it as additional resources become available.

Letters, Petitions, and Actions

Educational Resources

Mental Health Resources

National Gun Violence Prevention Coalitions in Which the UUA Participates

Regional and State Gun Violence Prevention Organizations

What Is the UUA’s Position on Gun Violence Prevention?

What's New

"... we know that other high-income nations have violent crime rates similar to ours, but their homicide rates are a fraction of the U.S. rate because their strong gun laws deny violent individuals in those countries easy access to guns. To the extent that lethal gun crime continues to plague our communities, it is due, not to the futility of all gun laws, but rather to the weaknesses of U.S. gun laws."

Beacon Broadside: Guns Make Killing Easy by Dennis A. Henigan