Moms Demand Action holds march against gun violence
Amid rising concern over gun violence, a group of demonstrators led by local activists with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America marched on Saturday to say “enough is enough.”
A small band of demonstrators set off from the Tennessee Riverwalk’s Blue Goose Hollow trailhead at 9 a.m. and marched across the Walnut Street Bridge to Renaissance Park where police, grieving mothers and community leaders spoke candidly about the problem of gun violence in Chattanooga.
“One victim is one too many on our watch,” said Chattanooga police Assistant Chief Edwin McPherson to the crowd, which grew to several dozen during the march.
“We as police cannot arrest our way out of this. We can’t do it without the community.”
Most of the marchers wore orange shirts, stickers and pins as part of the Wear Orange
campaign started by friends of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-yearold Chicago high school student killed by gunfire.
Her friends decided to wear orange, the color hunters wear to protect themselves and others, on Pendleton’s birthday every year to raise awareness.
Officially, Moms Demand Action pushes for common-sense gun reform while supporting citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Erin Goddard, spokeswoman for the group’s Chattanooga chapter, said most gun owners are responsible and safe, but more can be done to ensure firearm safety, especially when it comes to children.
“If a kid knocks over a vase, you’re going to have a broken vase and some water on the floor,” Goddard said. “If a kid plays with a gun, the consequences can be much more dire.”
Goddard has five children and said she used to lie awake at night worrying over whether her kids might find themselves in environments where guns weren’t being handled appropriately.
She said she grew up near Virginia Tech and her husband works in San Bernardino, Calif., so the issue began to give her more anxiety after the mass shootings in each place. A gunman killed 32 people in 2007 at Virginia Tech. Another 14 people were killed, along with the two shooters, in the December 2015 San Bernardino attack.
“Responsible ownership, responsible usage and responsible storage,” she said. “It should be something we talk about as easily as, ‘My kid has a peanut allergy.’”
One of the demonstrators, Logan Taylor, said he grew up near Cromwell Road in Chattanooga and can remember being exposed to gun violence at a young age.
“We used to hear gunshots a lot,” he said. “That affected us, being in elementary school.”
He recounted one night when he was out with a friend at a club and someone opened fire in a fight outside. He and his friend saw the victim was shot in the leg and rushed over to make sure he was all right.
Now Taylor is the co-founder of YBNormal, a nonprofit community outreach organization with the goal of inspiring and empowering troubled and underprivileged youth.
“Responsible ownership, responsible usage and responsible storage. It should be something we talk about as easily as,
‘My kid has a peanut allergy.’”
— ERIN GODDARD, SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE CHATTANOOGA CHAPTER
OF MOMS DEMAND ACTION
He said the task of curbing violence is tall, but events like Saturday’s march give him hope.
“When people decide to genuinely work together, we can collectively make an impact,” he said.
So far in 2017, Chattanooga has counted nearly 50 shootings and 12 homicides. At this point last year, Chattanooga had experienced 15 homicides in a year that ended by setting a record for homicides since 2001. Nationwide, guns were used in nearly 13,000 homicides in 2015, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More information about Moms Demand Action and its initiatives can be found online at momsdemandaction.org.
Contact staff writer Emmett Gienapp at egienapp@times freepress.com or 423-757-6731. Follow him on Twitter @emmettgienapp.