From Buffalo, New York, to Uvalde, Texas, America is witnessing the violent dystopian world the gun lobby has created, and lawmakers have enabled, Kristin Bowen told about 75 people Thursday evening.
“We hear the same thoughts and prayers over and over again,” Bowen, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said during a candlelight vigil held to honor victims of recent mass shootings. “But it doesn’t save lives; and it doesn’t change laws.”
Jefferson City Racial Equity Group, the NAACP and leaders of Jefferson City’s faith, and nonprofit communities hosted a candlelight vigil alongside the Veterans Memorial on the North side of the Missouri Capitol to honor victims of one mass shooting.
Sadly, it had to honor two.
Intended to honor victims of the racially-motivated May 14 mass shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, participants also shed tears for shooting victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting and their families in Uvalde, Texas.
“Ultimately it all leads to the same thing — lives lost at the hands of preventable gun violence,” Bowen said. “We deserve to feel safe when we’re dropping our kids off at school, when we’re going to the grocery store, when we’re walking down the street, or just going about our lives.”
Communities of color are bearing the brunt of inaction, she said. Uvalde is a Latinx community, and the shooting in Buffalo was a racist attack on a Black community by a white supremacist.
W.T. Edmonson, with Missouri Faith Voices, pointed out that communities continue to hold vigil after vigil, but nothing changes.
“It will never change until we change. It is not their problem,” Edmonson said, while pointing at the Capitol. “It is our problem because we continue to send them there.”
Until voters decide that lawmakers are not doing their jobs, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, and send them home, vigils will continue to occur, he said.
The children who are dying, are dying on our watch, not just politicians, he said. The people gathered should not simply pray and do nothing.
“Prayer requires action. If we don’t act, who will? If people of faith don’t act, who will?” he asked. “We have to step out and say it like it is — there are some who will say and do anything to stay in power.”
If voters don’t take it upon themselves to correct society, they’ll gather in another vigil next month and again the month after that, he said.
Decades of violence have passed and American society is still dealing with the same things, he said.
The NAACP sent out a statement late this week on the racially-motivated May 14 mass shooting, which killed 10 people in Buffalo. The NAACP drafted the statement earlier this week, before another mass shooting killed 19 children and two adults in Uvalde.
The Buffalo shooting targeting Black Americans at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood represented one of the deadliest mass shootings this year, the statement said.
“It reflects a growing trend of hate-based mass shootings across the country. Our hearts are broken and we grieve for the victims of the horrific act of racially-driven gun violence in Buffalo,” the statement said.
For all Americans — particularly people of color — it becomes more critical than ever to use our voices to actively condemn these blatant acts of hatred, the statement said. Communities across the state and nation are unifying against hate, even as Blacks are hunted in supermarkets and neighborhoods, and at work.
“Fear will not win, nor will hate,” the statement said.
The statement reminds people that Missouri remains under an NAACP Travel Advisory — advising Black people to travel with extreme caution in Missouri, because “race-, gender- and color-based crimes have a long history in Missouri.”
The advisory indicates law enforcement is 75 percent more likely to conduct a traffic stop and search on Black people than on white people in the state.
The statement also encouraged Missourians to urge elected officials to pass laws that stifle the spread of gun violence by white supremacists.
“Let us all take this opportunity to recommit to our shared responsibility to work toward justice and the well-being of all. We must recognize that the Buffalo community has experienced a significant loss of life, and the Missouri NAACP stands in solidarity with their mourning,” the statement said. “We send out our sincere condolences to the entire Buffalo, N.Y. community.”
Racially motivated extremism divides the American collective and jeopardizes the lives of people of color and other marginalized communities, the statement said.
It asked that individuals, organizations or businesses call 1-844-622-2743 (1-844-NAACPHELP) to join a process intended to heal the country’s hate divide.
The United States, Bowen said, is being held hostage by a gun lobby and industry that is getting rich off the deaths of children. There are more than 400 million guns in the country — flooding streets, schools and homes, she said. Gun violence can strike anywhere at any time, she said.
“But the response from lawmakers, backed by the gun lobby, is that we need more guns,” Bowen said. “If more guns made us safer, we would already be the safest country on earth.”
The first paragraph has been changed to correct the description of the world described by the speaker.