CeaseFirePA is an organization that has advocated to end gun violence in Pennsylvania since 2002. According to its website, 1,600 Pennsylvania residents lose their lives to gun violence every year, and 3,000 more are injured. On April 23, CeaseFirePA held the Keystone Courage 2025 ceremony in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania to celebrate heroes in the gun violence prevention movement.
This year’s program awarded Congresswomen Mary Gay Scanlon and Madeleine Dean; Penn Medicine, which greatly assisted in aiding in gun violence recovery; and this year’s Deadly by Design storytellers, a video series initiative created by CeaseFirePA to share personal accounts about gun violence in the state. The initiative is one way CeaseFirePA partners with communities to combat gun violence issues.
“The important thing to know is that nearly every community in the commonwealth experiences gun violence of some kind,” CeaseFirePA campaign director Ashleigh Deemer wrote in an email. “We elevate the stories of survivors through our Deadly by Design video series, and we work with community violence intervention organizations to advocate for the funding they need to do their life-saving work.”
In 2021, the coalition raised $30 million to combat the spike in violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its actions influenced former Gov. Tom Wolf’s decision to veto a bill allowing anyone over 18 years old to carry a gun without a permit and former President Joe Biden’s regulation of ghost guns, or guns made at home via 3D printers. Junior Ayr Ajitabh, a gun violence issue representative for Conestoga’s Amnesty International club, highlights the importance of minimizing gun violence.
“I think the reason I picked to be a gun violence issue representative is because I think it’s often a forgotten-about issue, or it’s just so joked about within American society because it’s so normalized, and I feel like that’s a problem,” Ajitabh said.
In addition to normalization of gun violence, there have been recent roadblocks, notably President Donald Trump’s administration’s funding cut for community violence intervention and survivor support programs. According to an article from the Washington Post, the Department of Justice has cut roughly $811 million in funds that were intended to be allocated to gun violence prevention, addiction prevention and victim advocacy programs nationally. Deemer expressed how the funding cuts impact CeaseFirePA’s goals.
“They’re dismantling work that prevents violent retaliation and stops shootings before they happen,” Deemer wrote. “The Allentown-based organization Promise Neighborhoods is among the grantees that lost funding last week. Promise Neighborhoods works with the Lehigh Valley Hospital to provide trauma-informed care and services to shooting victims to break the cycle of violent retaliation. This is precisely the kind of work our government should be investing in. Violence intervention programs protect lives, save taxpayer dollars and build lasting community safety.”
