Vigil for the fallen
Courthouse Square the site of gathering to honor young lives lost in Uvalde, Texas, shooting
About two dozen people brought candles, tears, and songs to a candlelight vigil at Courthouse Square in downtown Sonora Wednesday night for 19 students and two teachers who were gunned down Tuesday in a lone-gunman shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“Their lives were taken in a few seconds,” Mary Anne Schmidt, who helped organize the vigil, told the gathering. “Their teachers could not block the bullets.”
Thad Waterbury, 79, of Sonora, helped others light their candles. Kristi Traub, 46, of Columbia, and Margie Miller, 52, of Sonora, were among those who blew out candles for each victim when their names were read aloud.
The 18-year-old gunman
purchased weapons and ammunition — including two AR-15 style assault rifles — just last week, Texas authorities said. The Texas massacre was just the latest mass shooting in the U.S.
Some legal gun sales are regulated, and other gun sales are unregulated, Schmidt said Wednesday night in Sonora. Elected senators in the nation’s capital are to blame for the lack of movement on meaningful gun control legislation that could reduce mass shootings, Schmidt said.
“They must be removed from office,” Schmidt said. “No more condolences. No more moments of silence. You don’t get my vote until you can make our communities safe from guns and gun owners.”
Tuolumne County has
issued 2,692 gun permits in the past 10 years, Schmidt said. There have been no mass shootings at a school or any other location in the county in the past decade, or in any living person’s memory. Schmidt still questioned whether guns make the county safer, and she urged gun owners to examine their reasons for owning guns.
“We need a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Schmidt said. “These are weapons of war, made strictly to kill people.”
Julie Orth, 49, of Sonora, sang a Celtic song, Deep Peace, during the vigil. Together the gathering sang “We Shall Overcome,” which came from gospel to become a protest anthem of the American civil rights movement in the 1960s.
Lauren Hurley, 55, of Jamestown, burned cedar for healing and purification at one point, to attract good spirits and eliminate negative energies.
Dena Armario-lyons, 39, of Sonora, came with her husband, Petar Silovic, 52, and she wore a red T-shirt with the words, “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.” Armario-lyons and Schmidt urged people to contact Moms Demand Action, a grassroots organization that touts chapters in all 50 states.
The candlelight vigil was staged from 8 p.m. to about 9 p.m. Wednesday. About 8:30 p.m., a motorist driving north up Washington Street yelled out, “Jesus hates you!” The Wednesday vigil was the second demonstration against mass shootings in Sonora this week. On Sunday, about 40 people gathered to protest against white supremacist shootings across the U.S. in recent years, and to memorialize victims of one of the most recent incidents, in Buffalo, New York, on May 14.