2 Lancaster County residents appointed to Pa. gun violence committee

• By Lucy Albright/LNP | LancasterOnline

Two Lancaster County residents have been appointed to the executive committee for the Pennsylvania Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Suicide prevention is a throughline in the work of both Maura Condon Umble and Lindsay Pringle, a retiree with a personal connection to gun death and the manager of community health and wellness at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, respectively.

Re-established last year, the office aims to improve data availability on firearm incidents, encourage safer gun ownership through secure storage practices, advance local suicide prevention initiatives and increase investments in community-based violence intervention and prevention, among other goals.

Umble’s 24 year old son died by suicide in 2018, a loss that was “unfathomable” for her and her family, Umble said. Though she is incredibly honored to have been selected for the executive committee, she finds her gun violence prevention work “a little emotionally confusing,” she said, because of the circumstances that brought her to it.

“I am incredibly honored to … have any role that’s going to try to make a difference to reduce that kind of gun violence — and any kind of gun violence, because it’s just … a terrible part of our society, and we’ve got to stop it,” Umble said.

A few years after her son’s death, Umble retired early from Franklin & Marshall College, where she was director of the office of the president and secretary of the board. She then began volunteering with a local Moms Demand Action group, where she is now the lead on the firearm suicide awareness and prevention task force. She also volunteers with CeaseFirePA, and is a non-board member of a committee that focuses on fundraising for the organization.

The majority of gun deaths in Pennsylvania and nationwide are suicides.

The Office of Gun Violence Prevention convened an advisory group for the first time on Tuesday, a year after Gov. Josh Shapiro reestablished the office in 2024, according to a press release from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Pringle and Umble were both in attendance.

 

Reducing stigma, saving lives

Pringle is project director of the Lancaster County Safe Storage Initiative, a county-wide gun storage education program that aims to decrease suicides and accidental deaths, and co-chairs the Lancaster County Child Death Review Board.

In addition to gun safety, her work touches on topics from car seats to immunization to farm safety. She coordinates Safe Kids Lancaster County, co-chairs the Lancaster County Amish Safety Committee and serves on the board of the Pennsylvania Immunization Coalition — all through LG Health.

As a member of the executive committee, she hopes to use data on firearm deaths and injuries to identify areas of need, and to implement evidence-based strategies to reduce those incidents across the state, she said. She also aims to reduce stigma around mental health and firearms. Guns are the leading method of suicide death nationwide, Pringle said.