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On March 27, our districts, our state and our nation mourned the deaths of three younger kids and three adults who have been killed at The Covenant College in Nashville by a shooter wielding three weapons, together with an AR-15. It was the newest mass homicide of youngsters in our state and nation. There have been way more mass shootings in 2023 than there have been days.
1000's gathered outdoors the state Home to demand motion, principally youth. My colleagues and I prayed with and listened to these grieving and frightened who wished motion to cease the killing. Our colleagues on the opposite aspect of the aisle hurried previous the traumatized kids, averting their eyes.
Our individuals have been ignored. Our individuals have been pushed again. So we spoke up. We stepped ahead.
Gun violence has touched every of us personally. There are few on this state and nation who haven't been touched by the gorgeous absence of commonsense gun security legal guidelines. Simply this week, one other mass taking pictures took no less than 5 harmless lives in neighboring Kentucky.
The deaths received’t cease till the highly effective Nationwide Rifle Affiliation and different gun lobbies lose management of conservative lawmakers. We refuse to sacrifice extra of our youngsters on the altar of the NRA’s cash.
The U.S. leads the developed world in firearm homicides and we’re the one industrialized nation on the earth the place gun violence is the main reason for dying for kids.
In maybe the best ethical assault towards the nice individuals of Tennessee, Home Speaker Cameron Sexton falsely equated the peacefully protesting kids and fogeys, grieving and exercising nothing aside from their First Modification rights, to the insurrectionists of Jan. 6, 2021.
The insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol violently broke legal guidelines, home windows and doorways, assaulted regulation enforcement and tried to breach the Home and Senate chambers by power. They smeared feces on the partitions of the Capitol and hunted the vp of america with a said intent to kill. They tried to overthrow the free and truthful election of the president of america.
No, the kids peacefully expressing their First Modification rights, demanding an finish to their No. 1 killer, will not be insurrectionists. They're patriots they usually need to be heard.
So sure, we determined to interrupt decorum. However we broke no regulation, dedicated no violence. We did nothing however comply with the mandate to characterize our constituents and object to insurance policies that endanger our individuals.
Our individuals have been ignored. Our individuals have been pushed again. So we spoke up. We stepped ahead.
As a result of 60 years in the past, almost to the day, Dr. Martin Luther King taught us, “Regulation and order exist for the aim of creating justice, and after they fail on this goal, they change into the dangerously structured dams that block the move of social progress.”
In a transfer that reminds us that Jim Crow is alive and effectively, the outraged purveyors of a deeply anti-democratic and racist ideology expelled us from the Individuals’s Home.
However you possibly can’t expel a motion. You possibly can’t silence the voice of the individuals. You possibly can’t deny justice.
We meet their hatred with love. We meet their oppression with liberation. Our numbers are better, our voices are extra highly effective.
As our ancestors remind us, our Motion for Justice will all the time overcome.