The Michigan Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence (MCPGV) held a candlelight vigil event on the steps of the Capitol to remember the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting and the 90,000 Americans who have died from gun violence since Dec. 2012.
Activists and religious leaders from the Lansing community spoke.
“From the horrific mass shootings, to the daily grinding gun violence in all our communities we are here to remember all victims and families and friends,” MCPGV executive director Linda Brundage said.
Leaders from the Lansing area’s different faith communities spoke at the event, including the Lester and Jewell Morris Hill Jewish Student Center’ Rabbi Dana Benson.
Benson urged students to take a stand.
“If you feel more can be done on your campus to prepare for an active shooter situation, you must be the voice to create that change,” Benson said.
Speakers denounced the recent senate bill, SB 442, which allows concealed pistol license holders to carry unconcealed weapons in schools.
“I think student have a right to be in their dorm rooms, and classrooms and not worry about whether the person next to them might have a gun” Brundage said.
The vigil’s speakers included Rep. Jon Hoadley (D-Kalamazoo). Hoadley along with several of his colleagues read aloud a resolution to be submitted to the state house of representatives declared Dec. 9-16 "All Victims of Gun Violence Week."
A similar resolution was recently introduced to the state senate.
Speakers recalled their own personal tragedies with gun violence.
“My father Sherlock F. Knight lived his whole life thinking he was cursed,” Grand Rapids native Dana Knight said.
At age three, Knight’s father accidentally shot his two year old sister while playing unattended with a loaded shotgun as his family prepared to go to church. Knight’s grandparents’ divorced soon after her aunt’s death.
“My father always believed his mother blamed him for killing her baby girl,” Knight said.
Knight’s father went on to be drafted by the Detroit Lions and became Grand Rapids’ first black architect.
"He never felt a part of the family, he believed he was always being punished for killing his sister,” Knight said.
The vigil’s attendees were led in song by Williamston High School teacher Sally Potter.
All who spoke encouraged those gathered to do their part in a world fragmented by violence and discord.
“In the Jewish tradition it is said that when god created the universe there was one part left undone, that part was entrusted to us,” Benson said.
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