Elected officials from across Orange County dressed in matching shades of orange on Friday to lead a rally on gun violence awareness. 

A joint color guard from the Town of Chapel Hill and Orange County raised an orange flag on the flagpole at Peace and Justice Plaza. An annual tradition, the color orange honors gun violence victims and gun violence advocacy. 

Chapel Hill, Carborro, and Hillsborough representatives, local volunteers, and community members also gathered at the plaza to deliver and hear speeches advocating for reform. This year marks the ninth year of annual Gun Violence Awareness rallies, but Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson said the event hit home this year especially. 

“After years of thoughts and prayers for other towns and other communities, we found ourselves dealing with the issues of gun violence on campus this year and just this week with a suspected murder suicide in our community,” Anderson said to the crowd.

The Chapel Hill Police Department are still investigating an “apparent” murder-suicide that happened at the Chapel View Apartment Complex on Monday. Last August, the University of North Carolina went into a campus-wide lockdown when a graduate student fatally shot his faculty advisor in a gun violence incident that captured national attention.

North Carolina ranks 23rd for gun deaths in the United States, and 59 percent of Americans nationwide report that they or someone they care about has been affected by gun violence — “most of us sitting here today,” said Eliazbeth Hoane, one of the speakers at the event.

Hoane is a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and it’s her third year with the organization. 

“This isn’t just about statistics and headlines, it’s about real people, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends who have been taken from us all too soon,” she said in her speech. “It’s about children who go to school every day wondering if they’ll make it home safely. It’s about survivors who have to live with the physical and emotional scars of gun violence for the rest of their lives.”

Hoane advocated for addressing the root causes of gun violence: promoting responsible gun ownership, supporting education and training programs, and implementing common sense measures like universal background checks. She also said that awareness is just one part of the work and she wants the community to know that the Chapel Hill town elected officials are supportive and want to see change happen. 

Anderson urged the community to take a stand by wearing orange and make their voices heard by voting with gun violence prevention in mind during the upcoming state and federal elections. 

“We have to make our communities and our country safer, especially for our kids,” she said.

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