It seems readers that our desperate hope for a peaceful city, unfortunately, is still only a dream. You may be asking why?  The reason is quite simple, we live in a city where people are fearful of each other and once you think about it they have the right to be. For if I was on my way to the store and suddenly by mistake bumped into someone who might have had a bad day, it is almost likely that they would pull a gun out on me. It becomes so difficult to understand how anyone can pull the trigger of a gun ending a person’s life.

When did everything begin to fall apart? Did the violence begin to escalate more when former mayor John F. Street was in office and Sylvester Johnson was commission or further back? In 2006, 179 people aged 7-24 were killed in Philadelphia. Of those who were killed, 94% were killed with firearms. I don’t mean to ask such a cliché question, but isn’t this supposed to be the city of brotherly love?

“Keep kids alive” is their motto and it seems to be a very strong one at that. Last fall Mrs. Lynne Honickman, wearing a magnificent hat and shirt bearing her new organization name took stage at Love Park, “I created Mom Against Guns as a force for change,” said Mrs. Honickman, “And a form for other women to express their fury, its about voices, thousands of voices telling Pennsylvania lawmakers over and over again that illegal guns must be controlled.”

The audience applauded Mrs. Honickman and why not? Obviously things have gotten out a little out of the control and if the people we elect are not going to listen to us as they promised then its time to start making them. “I know its going to take awhile and I don’t think that this one group is going to put an end to gun violence,” says Mrs. Honickman “but I think if we can get voices that haven’t been heard before and then add those voices to the other hard working voices out there then maybe we’ll become the biggest and strongest group in town.”

The idea of Moms Against Guns had came to Mrs. Honickman when building of the, Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs, was in progress.  At the time, she was helping to plan a trip to the Institute of Contemporary Art for some of the community’s kids who attended the after school program now being moved to the learning center. At this time she had also noticed some of them walking past a drug house. When several of the kids couldn’t make it to the trip that had been planed because of a recent drive by shooting, that’s when Mrs. Honickman thought that there was just too many guns in this city.

“Over the next two or three years when the learning center was completed, the violence had just gotten worse and worse and I thought to myself that if I don’t stand up and do something about this then I can’t live with myself.”  Mrs. Honickman wants her organization to do two things, one is to give the good citizens of Philadelphia a sense of having stood up and counted for something that she knows is hurting them inside. “There isn’t a mom around who doesn’t worry about their child walking down the street.” She adds. The second is that she hopes that it makes such a strong loud noise that our legislators have to listen and that the power that one gets from doing a good thing sticks around.

Moms Against Guns plan to expand into the whole state and they’re beginning now, “we are asking people that if you know anyone outside of our city within the state of Pennsylvania to tell us and we’ll email them and as the emails start to come in the message will spread and spread, that’s what a viral campaign is.”

Mrs. Honickman thought of making Moms Against Guns a viral campaign because it’s really “word of mouth.” In making the organization’s website she tried to make it very simple and very clear so that all you have to do is just go on and click the button and a letter from you will go straight to your legislator.

Another hope that Mrs. Honickman has is that we properly learn how to rehabilitate a person, helping them to get a meaningful, find housing, and get a good education. She believes that all of these things keep you from walking the wrong path. “The ultimate solution to major gun violence is to add as many voices as we can mount to campaign and get this to stop.

I urge you, the readers, to sign up and click the button at www.momagaisnstguns.org and get those letters to your legislators fast. The mounting gun violence that is plaguing Philadelphia must come to an end and people like you can help, one voice at a time.