(Left to right: Maria Brown, Jo O’Farrell, me, Michele Gowda, Camille Gowda, Anna McDonald, Lisa McDonald, and Karen Khor)
Yesterday I was up at 6:30am on Martin Luther King Day and was on the train bound for Brooklyn Bridge an hour later with five other women in support of One Million Moms for Gun Control. I joined a few hundred other people in a rally led by Shannon Watts, a mom from Indiana, and marched proudly through Brooklyn to Town Hall in NYC. There we heard Montego Glover sing “26 Names”, a tribute to the 20 first-graders and six school officials who died in shootings Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. We also heard from NYC Councilwoman Letitia James and Jackie Rowe Adams, founder of Harlem Mothers Stop Another Violent End who shouted out “Put the guns down, throw the peace sign up!” We listened in unity.
Moms for Gun Control is pushing for bans on assault weapons and large magazines; the closing of loopholes that allow some gun sales without background checks; boundaries on how much ammunition can be purchased; and limits on the scope of concealed weapons laws.
In less than month, 75 branches of 1MM4GC have sprung up across the country, all driving home the same messages that gun laws have to change now. Social media is taking the message further than would have ever been possible and it’s making this a personal mission for thousands and thousands of moms who don’t want to our children to have to live in fear.
The group will be marching in Washington, DC this weekend. Here is information from the One Million Moms for Gun Control web site – every body counts, please try to attend:
When: Saturday, January 26, at 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Where: Beginning at the Capitol Reflecting Pool on 3rdStreet NW (across from the Museum of the American Indian), the march will progress down Constitution Ave., ending in a rally with speeches and music at the Washington Monument NE quadrant.
About this event: Thousands of citizens, spurred by the Newtown gun massacre, plan a silent march to support President Obama’s gun-control plan and call on Congress and state legislators to protect Americans from gun violence. The march will unite concerned parents, pastors, actors, gun-violence survivors, law enforcement officers, elected officials and others who want common-sense gun control regulations.
Joined by Newtown families, the District of Columbia’s Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Vincent Gray, and Councilmembers David Grosso, Kenyan McDuffie and Tommy Wells will lead the march. Speakers will include Congresswoman Norton; U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.); Senior Pastor Dean Snyder of Foundry United Methodist Church, Washington, D.C.; Virginia Tech massacre survivor Colin Goddard; Shannon Watts, founder of One Million Moms for Gun Control; and Hollywood actress Kathleen Turner.
This march is being organized by an informal group of several dozen DC-area citizen activists. It is being co-sponsored by One Million Moms for Gun Control, Trinity United Church of Christ, Foundry United Methodist Church, and the Washington National Cathedral.
More information on march logistics is available from the March on Washington for Gun Control at: http://www.guncontrolmarch.com.
I’m so sorry I didn’t see you! We ended up near the back of the bottleneck getting to the bridge stairs, but we did work our way near the front at City Hall – was looking for you. I wish it had been warmer, because my hands were too cold to tweet people and find them. :-/