Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati has responded to the gun violence there by placing a 20-by-24-foot mural on its building’s south side façade at a busy intersection in the city’s downtown business district designed by artists Icy and Sot (see above). The mural, created in partnership with ArtWorks Cincinnati, a nonprofit that trains youth to create art for public impact, depicts a group of young men holding pencils that resemble guns with grips, triggers and magazine.
“The juxtaposition of an image that looks like a gun but is actually a pencil is the artist inviting us to imagine what might be possible if weapons were transformed into something quite different,” said the Very Rev. Gail Greenwell, dean of Christ Church Cathedral.”
The cathedral has also had yard signs and banners created that show a child erasing the image of a gun drawn on a chalkboard to be displayed at businesses and homes around the city where gun violence has occurred to try to alter the awareness of gun violence in an effort to raise support for change. 
The cathedral is also partnering with city leaders and community advocates, including Mitch Morris of the Cincinnati Works’ Phoenix Program, to combat gun violence in Cincinnati. Since 2007, the Phoenix Program has worked to curb urban violence and address the cycles of poverty.
You can read more at ENS here
images: from ENS, photos by Sarah B. Hartwig