Sarasota chapter of Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence holds interfaith memorial
Over the past few weeks, in hundreds of somber gatherings at churches and schools and other venues across the country, people have come together to mark the fifth anniversary of Sandy Hook.
Sandy Hook.
It’s unnecessary to say anything more to identify the mass shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school in 2012 that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.
Sandy Hook. Columbine. Aurora. Virginia Tech. San Bernardino. Orlando. Sutherland Springs. We remember America’s mass gun violence events by place, simply because there are too many victims to remember every name.
On anniversaries like this one, long lists are read aloud in an attempt to insure those lost are not forgotten. Yet most of the 115,000 people annually in this country who lose their lives by firearms we never hear of at all, their absence noted only by those loved ones who forever after feel a gaping hole in their lives.
Last week in Sarasota, a small but fervent group of gun control advocates — the only active chapter of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence in the entire state of Florida — gathered at a local church to mark the weighty date with an interfaith memorial that included testimonials, poetry, prayer and song.
No one in attendance had lost a close relative to gun violence; that’s not why they were there. Nor was anyone advocating the dismantling of the Second Amendment. They are hardly the "extreme liberals and Hollywood types" called out as instigators of the gun control movement. In fact, when Diane Mott Davidson, one of the founding members of the local chapter used that phrase, ripple of chuckles filtered through the mostly gray-haired and conservatively dressed crowd.
They were there because they ardently and adamantly believe this country should enact "sensible" gun control reforms that will offer protection for "the innocents" — in particular those whose lives, like the 6- and 7-year-olds killed at Sandy Hook, have barely begun.
"Our children," the speakers said repeatedly. "Our grandchildren."
This is the same hardy group you can find every Thursday afternoon by the bayfront "kissing statue," holding up signs that read: "Ban assault weapons," "Support background checks" and "Love your child — Lock up your guns." Sometimes, those driving by give a thumbs up.
Other times, said Carol Rescigno, president of the chapter, they raise a middle finger. At least a third who pass by are "on their phones or ignoring us completely." A couple of times, someone has held up a pistol or a rifle. Only once, Davidson recalled, did a man stop and get out of his car to express the hope that "someone comes by and mows you all down."
Nevertheless, they return the next Thursday, and the next, with the same message, the same signs, the same undaunted commitment.
On a table near a "memory wall" lay laminated sheets bearing the names and ages of victims from every infamous gun massacre that has taken place in recent memory. Attendees were encouraged to "adopt" a name from the hundreds listed and write it, and a message, on the wall.
One of the names was Daniel Barden, the gap-toothed red-haired 7-year-old Sandy Hook student whose mischievous grin has become familiar as the face of Sandy Hook Promise, the gun control advocacy nonprofit started by his parents. Four years ago, Daniel posthumously became a distant relative of Rescigno’s when her son, who lives in Newtown, married a woman who was the little boy’s much older cousin.
The connections for others were less direct, but none the less motivating.
Davidson is a snowbird, who still lives part of the year in Evergreen, Colorado. When the school shootings in nearby Columbine occurred in 1999 her youngest son’s school went into lockdown. After Sandy Hook, her oldest son, 34, called, sobbing, "How does this happen?"
Priscilla Crumel, who moved to Sarasota from New Jersey in 2003, felt "like I was personally injured" when she heard the news from Sandy Hook, though she’d already retired from her career as an educator.
"As a teacher, I was always taught that it was my responsibility to protect our children," she said. "I felt we’d failed them."
The memorial service was simple, non-denominational, solemn. Halfway through, a breathless silence fell as two women holding long church candle lighters, touched a flame to 50 candles in glass holders, representing gun deaths in all of the country’s 50 states. The repeated tink-tink-tink of metal on glass as each one was lit seemed to go on forever.
At the conclusion, everyone stood, moved toward the center aisle from the pews on either side of the sanctuary, and linked arms to sing "We Shall Overcome." Did they really believe they would? More than most, they recognize that trying to put any restrictions on the constitutional right to bear arms in this country is a formidable battle.
But giving up, they say, is not an option.
So they continue to send out email blasts, to call and write legislators when gun legislation comes to a vote, to march on state and national capitols. And every Thursday, in their blue T-shirts with Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence white lettering, to hold up their oft-ignored signs.
"My thoughts tonight are about the people who have let light triumph over the darkness," said Rescigno, remembering three survivors from the Pulse nightclub shootings with whom she recently traveled to a national summit. "The violence will never go away completely. But we believe we can make a difference."
Contact columnist Carrie Seidman at 941-361-4834 or carrie.seidman@heraldtribune.com. Follow her on Twitter @CarrieSeidman and Facebook at facebook.com/cseidman.