VILLAGE OF FAYETTEVILLE – Making their voices heard and their messages visible, a group of local residents wearing orange sought to honor gun violence victims and push for drastic change at Fayetteville’s Beard Park on June 3.
As part of a National Gun Violence Awareness demonstration coordinated by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the attendees advanced through the park and down the sidewalk chanting rallying slogans like “Enough is enough,” “Save our kids” and “No more silence, end gun violence.”’
“Our kids are being raised with the reality and understanding that they’re not entirely safe at their schools,” said Manlius Town Councilor Heather Allison Waters. “I know that we can do better, and one of the things we can do is support each other and keep pushing actions that make gun violence less of a reality here and everywhere.”
Facing South Manlius Street as passing cars periodically honked their horns, some marchers hoisted signs reading “Disarm Hate,” “Gun Control Now” and “Ban All Weapons of War.”
In attendance Friday evening was Cicero resident Valerie Wilcox, whose niece Roberta Drury was the youngest of the 10 people killed in last month’s Buffalo Tops supermarket shooting.
“I still wake up every day and think, “Did this really just happen to my family?” Wilcox said. “It’s just craziness that some people in America can’t even buy a six pack of beer but they can buy these semi-automatic rifles.”
She added that the outpouring of support for her family members since her niece’s death has been “overwhelming.”
“It shows that there are still good people out there,” Wilcox said. “There’s just those rotten apples.”
The founder of the Syracuse chapter of Moms Demand Action, Tonya Dugan, said a “huge influx” of people joined the group after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, but she said she wants to avoid the “disheartening” petering out of momentum that followed.
“I do not want to be back here four years from now after the next event at a school or a daycare or who knows what else,” Dugan said. “We are here, we are loud, we are moving, and we will stay in touch.”
Since Dugan now lives in Rochester, she will be prepping Syracuse resident Beth Eischen for a bigger leadership role within the local group.
Moms Demand Action is a national organization that strives to encourage responsible gun ownership and pass stronger firearm-related legislation on the federal level.
Anyone interested in taking part can join the private Facebook group or text “JOIN” to 64433 in order to enter the organization’s contact database.
Eischen said people of all ages can join Moms Demand Action, including fathers and those without children.
Observed early every June to recognize the innocent people killed with guns in this country, “Wear Orange Day” was started to pay tribute to Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl murdered in Chicago one week after her participation in President Barack Obama’s second inauguration parade. The reason for wearing orange? It’s the same color donned by hunters to increase their visibility and prevent being shot in the wilderness.