Gun violence kills 125 people in the U.S. daily and is the leading cause of teen death.
Dallas County residents who want that to change are turning out Friday to support National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Supporters are encouraged to wear orange in honor of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year old Chicago college preparatory student shot and killed in 2013.
She would have celebrated her birthday June 2.
Her friends chose orange because it's the safety color worn by hunters.
Scott Spreier, senior ambassador for the Giffords Gun Owners, a group that seeks seek reduce gun violence, said earlier this week at a Dallas County Commissioners meeting that he believes in owning and using firearms, but also respects life.
"We are all gun owners who support the Second Amendment, but think there needs to be responsible, reasonable gun laws," he said.
"I'm a veteran, a hunter. I was accredited to teach firearm training to Boy Scouts. I like guns. I hunt. But it's time we balance the right to bear arms with the right for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Dallas County commissioners voted this week to support Gun Violence Awareness Day.
County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said he has been personally affected by gun violence among loved ones.
"When you hear a loved one tell you 'I'm not well, I'm mentally struggling, I am deeply depressed,' 鈥� even when you don't hear it, but they're just laying in bed all the time, or you can tell something's going on, for God sakes, lock the gun up," he said. "Don't be a person that has regret for the rest of your life because you don't lock the gun up."
Commissioner John Wiley Price said the support and observation is important, but action and change is needed.
"I just saw a couple of weeks ago, a FedEx driver, shot 鈥� an African American young man 鈥� because he went to the wrong door. I hear all this, but again, when guns are your god, then that's the way you behave."
Spreier agreed with Price that action is needed.
"As an individual, and as a[n] old white man, there are a lot of us out there who, seeing that we're losing power and position in a changing society, cling to the myth of the Old West and the icon of guns as a talisman of sorts to save our power," he said. "And I think it's time to change."
The Texas Legislature recently took up a number of pro-gun measures. That included legislation that would prohibit local governments from organizing or funding firearm buyback events to organize or fund firearm buyback events. Another measure to limit "red flag laws" would prevent authorities from imposing high-risk of danger protective orders before criminal charges are filed.
"We may never have good red flag laws in Texas," Jenkins said earlier this week. "Sure hope we will, but you can be the red flag person in your own family, in your circle now. You don't have to wait for the government."
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