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SALT LAKE CITY — One by one, Salt Lake City and community leaders stood at the podium Thursday giving statistics about the horrific number of deaths caused by guns in Utah and in the nation each year.
"And yet we as a nation, knowing these things, tolerate in our communities a level of violence that is simply unknown in other countries," said the Rt. Rev. Scott B. Hayashi, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. "We are a violent nation. And seemingly, we have been at war with ourselves for far too long."
On Thursday, Hayashi, a board member of the Gun Violence Prevention Center, joined Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, Interim Police Chief Mike Brown, Deputy Fire Chief Karl Lieb and other members of the community for the 20th annual planting of daffodils in front of the Salt Lake City Public Safety Building.
The daffodil bulbs are planted each October to honor the victims of gun violence as part of the YWCA's Week Without Violence campaign. The daffodils, which will bloom next spring, serve as a symbol of hope.
Bishop Hayashi himself was a victim of gun violence. When he was a teenager working in a record store, three men entered one day and one of the men came up to him, "put a gun in my side and pulled the trigger," he said.
Bishop Hayashi was hospitalized for eight weeks and required 60 pints of blood. He said physically it took him years to recover.
"We've had more gun deaths in 10 years than nearly twice the population of Salt Lake City itself. And somehow, in spite of this, you and I and the people of this country lack the will to put into place sensible gun control laws," he said. "No other developed country in the world would tolerate this."
While there is a lot of attention given to mass shootings, Bishop Hayashi said they only make up a small percentage of the overall gun deaths in America. Far more people are shot because of domestic violence or while being robbed on a daily basis, he said.
He also reminded those who attended Thursday's ceremony that it isn't just the families of loved ones who are killed by guns who are affected, but also those who are shot and survive.
"We grieve those we have lost, certainly and rightfully so. But then we also need to be concerned about those who survive and how their sense of safety has been ripped away from them," he said.
Bishop Hayashi also addressed the responsible gun owners of Utah.
"To those people, I say thank you for behaving responsibly," he said.
Brown also noted that steps could be taken immediately to help curb gun violence in the city if there were more responsible gun owners. He pointed out that from Jan. 1 to Oct. 20, his department responded to 64 cases of guns being stolen out of vehicles. Only nine of those 64 weapons had been recovered as of Thursday.
"We have put 55 guns into the hands of criminals right here in our own community," he said.
Brown said 2,000 children on average are killed every year in the nation due to gun violence. He recounted a recent incident when his officers were called to a domestic violence situation and they determined the young mother and her children needed to be placed in a shelter at the YWCA.
When they arrived at the shelter, one of the mother's young boys asked about security.
"He especially asked about the doors that required the staff to electronically open them before they could enter," Brown said. "This boy then visibly sighed and relaxed and said, 'Good. I don't want to get killed.' This boy recognized all too well how dangerous things were at his home."
Following comments by Becker, the group joined other members of the community in digging holes and planting bulbs in the ground.
