The Yankees dedicated their social media pages to informing the general public about gun violence on Thursday, which comes after a recent spate of shootings that killed dozens of Americans in Buffalo, Texas and beyond.
“In lieu of game coverage, and in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Rays, we will be using our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence,” the team wrote on Twitter. “The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo, and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”
The announcement came after a horrific shooting on May 24 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, when an 18-year-old gunman entered Robb Elementary school and killed 21 people, including 19 children and 2 teachers.
That tragedy came on the heels of a a May 14 incident, when a white supremacist entered Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo, and gunned down 10 Black people, while injuring three others.
This year, there have been 27 school shootings in throughout the country, according to Education Week data.
In response, the Yankees used their social media channels, with over 3.6 million followers on Twitter, to educate the public on the ongoing epidemic of gun violence.
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 26, 2022
“When an assault weapon is used in a mass shooting, it results in 6 times as many people shot than when other guns are used,” they said, citing the non-profit organization Everytown.
“Access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide,” they added.
For more overage of the Yankees and of gun violence, head to amNY.com.
According to the Brady Campaign, which was established by the loved ones of James Brady, the press secretary of former President Ronald Regan who was shot and injured during John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of the late Commander in Chief, 111 people are shot and killed each day by guns. Brady died in 2014, which would later be ruled a homicide.
An estimated 210 survive gunshot injuries on a daily basis.
The Big Apple saw 115 shooting incidents in the month of March 2022 (when the most recent data is available), which marked a 16.2% increase from the same month in 2021.
“People are going to realize the resiliency of this city,” said Mayor Eric Adams at an unrelated press conference on Thursday. “We have the best Police Department on the globe. The issue of pervasive gun violence has become something that’s an American problem, that we are all going to unite together across this country to solve together.”
President Joe Biden, after the Texas shooting, lamented the sale of guns whose “only real function is to kill human beings at a ferocious pace.”
Meanwhile, while much attention has been paid to the prevalence of mass shooters at schools and other gathering place, the Yankees pointed out that “an average of 4,500 veterans die by firearm suicide every year – about 12 veterans each day.”
“If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), available at all times,” they noted.
The move from the Yankees, along with their rival from Florida, took the focus off of baseball during their 7–2 win on Thursday, and helped inform the American public of the ongoing epidemic of shootings across the country.
“We all deserve to be safe — in schools, grocery stores, places of worship, our neighborhoods, houses and America,” the Rays posted on Twitter. “The most recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde have shaken us to the core.”
This article has been updated to reflect the year that James Brady died.
