Grieving moms demand action on gun violence
Families, friends and allies marched Saturday from City Hall to Queen’s Park calling for an end to gun violence and the devastation it brings.
Standing before the Pink Palace, as the legislature is known, mothers shared the heartbreak they’ve suffered losing sons to senseless violence. It’s a pain they wish on no one.
“Every time I hear on the news of another shooting and of another person dying my heart is shattered again,” said Evelyn Fox, who lost her son, Kiesingar Gunn, when he was killed by a stray bullet outside a night club last September.
Her son’s killer hasn’t been caught and she called on that person Saturday to come forward.
It was a violent act that took a “beautiful father” from his children, Fox said.
“We need change, we cannot allow our families to be further devastated and our communities,” she said.
“I cannot suffer another loss, I cannot survive another loss in my family.” Shauna Brown, whose son Demal Graham was killed last month in the driveway of his childhood home, said, “The resources need to be there. Our kids are going to more memorials and funerals than they are birthday parties. Something has to give.”
Gun violence increased dramatically in Toronto between 2013 and 2016, said Louis March, the founder of the Zero Gun Violence Movement, which organized the event.
“When the children come up to me and say it’s easier for them to get a gun than a job, that’s an indictment against we as a city,” he said.
There are two elections coming up next year — one municipal and one provincial. “They better start listening,” March said, “because we’re going to hold them accountable.” The Zero Gun Violence Movement plans to take its message to Ottawa next.