“I should be writing my college essay, not my will.”
“Schools are for learning, not lockdown.”
“Mental illnesses are global. Mass shootings are American.”
“Books not bullets.”
“Not a single kid has died in a mass reading, yet they’re banning books instead of guns.”
Highlands High School students advocated for gun reform during a protest Saturday afternoon in Tower Park.
The group was voicing their displeasure with the gun violence epidemic in America on the heels of recent deadly mass shootings across the country, including at a school in Uvalde, Texas and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Elizabeth Davidson said she grew up listening to biblical stories like Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Ada, and Eve, and, “I try to remember those overarching themes and the only one that I can truly remember is the lesson to love your neighbor as thyself. I try to carry out my actions and words in terms of loving my neighbor.
“I think about how I would want to be treated,” she said. “In this moment, our neighbors are faced with daily risks of their lives being ended by gun violence. Our neighbors are going to school with the chance their lives could be taken away. Going to the supermarket with the fear of not being able to return home. Gun violence, which includes gun suicide, hate crimes, and mass shootings led to 45,000 deaths in 2020, putting it as the number one cause of death for children in the United States.
“I don’t know if I can put it into simpler terms besides the fact that our neighbors are dying from a cause that is preventable. I have seen the way firsthand our community comes together and supports each other in times of need. I know that Fort Thomas is a community that cares about their neighbors and with that care I know they want to keep their neighbors safe.”
Davidson called on the state to close what was referred to as the ‘Charleston loophole,’ which by federal law allows gun purchases to move forward after three business days if a background check has not been completed, adding that those that are not completed within three days are more likely to fail. It is named for the city in South Carolina where nine people were murdered while at church in 2015.
Crimson MacDonald, president of Moms Demand Action, Northern Kentucky Chapter, told the assembled crowd that society’s glorification of guns needs to stop, adding that the candidates that voters send to Frankfort and Washington needs to change. (MacDonald is also chair of the Campbell County Democratic Party.)
“You have a ballot full of people ready to fight for you, but we have to fight for them to get them elected. They can’t do this alone,” she said. “If you are over 18, vote. If you will be over 18 at the time of the election in November, register and vote.”
MacDonald said those not of voting age could still be active by calling their legislators. “It’s not going to change unless we change it. I know it can be hard. I know it can feel like you are just on an island alone and nobody hears you, but I promise you, as someone who has been doing this for over 20 years, your island won’t stay lonely because you are on the right side of history,” MacDonald said. “All of you are on the right side of history. Don’t back down, don’t stop, get loud. All of you go make good trouble because your lives matter!”
Following the speeches, the protest continued down South Fort Thomas Avenue, coming to a halt at the Fort Thomas Fire Department where the crowd sat in silence for 21 minutes in honor of those killed at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, as protest leaders read off each name and what they meant to their community.
MacDonald started working with Moms Demand Action, which advocates for public safety measures to protect people from gun violence, in 2017.
“I am the generation of Columbine, so it has always been a passion to rally against,” said MacDonald, referencing the deadly 1999 school shooting in Colorado. “There has never been an organization until Moms Demand. It was right before my kids started kindergarten and I started to have anxiety about the realities of active shooter drills and even though we’re in Fort Thomas and we feel super safe here, it doesn’t really matter, right? Sandy Hook was a perfect example of that.
“So, I just went to a meeting thinking I’ve got to do something as an outlet for my anxiety. Even though I’m a Democrat and I’m political, I really love the messaging because as someone who is a political scientist, I understand how guns play a role in just our culture, in general. I like the messaging of not just, ‘melt them,’ but how do we coexist, how do we make laws that make us safer while respecting the right to bear arms?”
“If I sit on the sidelines, then I’m complicit in mass murder in our nation,” MacDonald said. “We’ve had over twenty shootings since May 15, and I do not believe that was the country I was born into and the country that I fight for. So that’s what keeps me going.”
