Within 24 hours, Gays Against Guns, a nonviolent direct action group put together a rally in response to the latest mass shootings across the United States. On Sunday afternoon, gun control advocates gathered on the steps of the New York City Public Library on 5th Avenue and marched to Times Square. Gays against Guns activist Jay Walker on why the organization works tirelessly to end the gun violence in the country, “This is a pervasive epidemic in the United States. The reason that we hold marches like this is to tell all Americans that they need to come out forcefully against gun violence. We need people in the streets in every city and every town in this country. We need to take Puerto Rico as a shining example of what can happen when masses of people turn out to protest and real governmental change can happen.”
Silently, veiled gun control advocates shrouded in white led the march holding placards with the images and names of the victims of gun violence. A more vocal group of activists carrying banners and signs followed chanting “How many more have to die?” and “GOP, NRA, how many people did you kill today?”
In Times Square, the group of around 300 activists was joined by guest speakers including Gays against Guns member Virginia Vitzthum as well as the founder of Hell’s Kitchen Democrats and renowned drag artist Marti Gould Cummings, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
Many of the activists and the speakers called out Trump for fueling the gun violence epidemic because of his chummy relationship with white supremacists. The El Paso shooter, who killed 22 people and injured 29 others (at the time of this writing, two of them have died of their injuries) at a Walmart on Saturday morning, apparently left behind a hate-filled racist manifesto in which he railed against a “Hispanic invasion” and commended the gunman who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in New Zealand last March. Trump has a long history of making racist statements and for stoking the flames of nationalism at his rallies with anti-immigrant rhetoric and toxic language. At a campaign event in Florida in May, one of his supporters shouted, “Shoot them” after Trump lamented that he couldn’t stop “these people” from entering the country, referring to asylum seekers and refugees at the U.S.-Mexican border. He responded jokingly, “That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with this stuff. Only in the Panhandle.”
At the Times Square rally, Gays against Guns member Virginia Vitzthum emphasized that the fervent defenders of the 2nd amendment are also those who dehumanize refugees, attack LGBTQI+ rights and ignore climate change. She said, “We are also politizing the mass murder in El Paso because the message that shooter was sending comes from the very top. And that message is white supremacy. From Mexicans are rapists and criminals, infestation, invasion, shithole countries and fine people on both sides when a neo-nazi run over a peaceful protestor.”
“You have a despicable, racist, white supremacist masking as the president telling people to exterminate and get rid off people who are immigrants, people who are different. That is a call to action to his white supremacist base,” Marti Gould Cummings said.
“Why, why in the United States?” Congressman Jerry Nadler asked referring to the fact that Americans are ten times more likely to die as a result of a firearm compared with residents of other industrialized countries. He denounced those who blame the gun violence epidemic on mental illness instead of addressing the core problem, the saturation of guns in this country, “It is a slander on the American people to say that Americans are thousands of times more mentally ill than people in Western Europe or Japan.”
Eric Adams had a message for the gun manufacturers and 2nd amendment propagandists, “We are not going away. We are never going to stop pursuing and pushing to make sure that our families live in a safe environment. The numbers speak for themselves.” The Brooklyn Borough President also reminded everyone that mass shootings should not be classified based on the location, ethnicity, or mission of the shooter. He referred to the mass shooting in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville where a gunman killed one person and injured 11 others on July 27 after the Old Timers Day block party, “Just as El Paso was a mass shooting, so the hell was Brownsville a mass shooting. We cannot beautify the language and make it appear that we have normalized violence in the communities of color all over this country.”
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams addressing gun control advocates on August 4, 2019, in Times Square in New York City. (Photo by Gabriele Holtermann-Gorden)
According to an interactive map published by VOX, there have been 2,191 mass shootings in the United States since the Sandy Hook shooting on December 14, 2012, when a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newton, Connecticut. Since then, 2,476 people have been killed in mass shootings, and 9,158 have been wounded. The numbers reflect the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio where a gunman killed nine people and injured 27 others shortly after midnight on August 4. The Dayton shooting is the 250th mass shooting in the United States this year. There are still 147 days left.
“When the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun, it does not discriminate.” – Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams
Impressions from the anti-gun rally in Times Square on August 4, 2019:
