Breaking the cycle of gun violence

(This is a guest post from Hank Johnson, a local pastor and friend in the city of Harrisburg. You can follow him on twitter @hank259).

Away from home, I woke up to a series of texts from my wife a few weeks ago, highlighting what looked to be an overnight scene of gun violence. Increasing gun violence is our present national reality (30,000 deaths from firearms each year; 30 people murdered by guns each day[1]). It is a seemingly everyday nightmare. Here in Harrisburg our nightmare was recently magnified by the tragic death of young Earl “Shaleek” Pinckney[2], which has left us with opposing tales.[3]