Alonzo Pennington performs “You Raise Me Up” to close the Marshall County/West Kentucky March for Our Lives.
By Bobbie Foust/Special to Marshall County Daily
Joining millions in 800 cities around the world, nearly 400 people rallied Saturday in Calvert City demanding an end to school shootings. And they demanded their elected leaders pass sensible gun laws to protect students in their classrooms. A child, about 4, sitting directly in front of the speaker’s platform, carried a sign summing up the rally’s collective goal. “My Life is Worth Saving,” the sign read. Others carried signs bearing a variety of slogans.
A teen speaker called out by name Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. “We are coming for you!” the speaker said, flanked nearly a dozen others. They also expressed solidarity against “militarizing our schools.”
The crowd, which was gathered at Memorial Park for the Marshall County/West Kentucky March for Our Lives, included not only students, but also, parents, teachers, at least one college history professor, one retired college history professor/journalist, at least one college journalism professor, a plethora of media reporters, visitors from as far away as Chicago and New Hampshire, relatives and friends of the Jan. 23 shooting at Marshall County High School and the Heath High shooting 20 years ago. Calvert City Fire Chief Fred Ross and firefighter Tim Davis brought the city’s ladder truck, extended the ladder and unfurled a huge American flag in front of the podium. And Leight July provided entertainment before the program began.
The teens made it clear that they have no fear of the National Rifle Association, and if legislators do, they will elect more courageous lawmakers. And state Rep Will Coursey, who is seeking a different office, said he didn’t renew his NRA membership this year.
The youths also discounted a popular theory that mental illness causes mass shootings. Two students said they suffer from depression and anxiety, but have never thought of picking up a gun and harming someone. “Our government and others say mental illness is to blame, well once again, we call BS,” the speaker said, noting that most mentally ill people are never violent.
Student and adult speakers put political leaders on notice that they have failed in their duty to protect students. And they demanded changes in laws. “If these laws don’t change, then we will change the lawmakers,” one youth said. Speakers included 11 students ranging from 14 to 17 who survived the MCHS shooting, which killed Bailey Holt and Preston Cope, both 15, and wounded 14 others. Four adult speakers — a hunting guide/musician, a physician who treated the wounded students, Coursey, and a newspaper publisher who covered the tragedy — emphasized their support for the students’ goal to stop gun violence.
Dr. Sterling Haring, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center who treated students wounded in the MCHS shooting, said his “experiences in medicine cannot be separated from the policies that cause them.” He said treating the teens who had been shot “was for me, a new experience. I had seen many gunshot wounds in the past … but to see a child with bullet holes in them changed my life, and I never want to see it again! As I worked over the bullet riddled body of a teenager in an emergency room … I came to the stark realization that the response to this unthinkable tragedy would be nothing but tweets and Facebook posts from politicians who offered their thoughts and prayers. It made me sick!” Haring said. We don’t want your thoughts and prayers, we want policies, we want lawmakers who are not afraid … we want children to survive the school day!”
Haring cited three fronts in what he and others called a battle for change:
- Fight every day on the front lines of policy making. Bring the fight to committees of legislatures across the country.
- Bring the battle to the voting booth this November and every November. “Millions across the country have made it clear that we will no longer stand for any politician who refuses to protect our children.”
- Bring the fight everywhere you go — to the dinner table, baseball practices, churches, Parent-Teacher Association meetings, workplace and neighbors. “We will engage in a respectful and kind conversation with folks who see things differently,” the doctor said. “We will not demonize those who disagree with us, but we will invite them to the table. We will find and celebrate and champion our common ground, and we will use that common ground to save lives.”
A crowd estimated at nearly 400 stood in what a newspaper publisher called “tears from Heaven,” as students, a doctor, a hunting guide/musician and others demanded elected authorities pass common sense gun laws to protect students from mass shooters.
Loyd Ford, publisher of The Lake News, welcomed marchers to Calvert City — “the greatest little town on earth.” He told listeners the gentle drizzle wasn’t rain. “You are not standing in rain, you standing in tears from heaven,” Ford said “I understand that we are here today to move a mountain, and … I’ve named that mountain. The mountain’s name is fear,” said Ford who covered the MCHS shooting. “Fear is the parent of hatred … hatred is the parent of evil. I’m standing before you today, I may be a radical leftist … but I’m a prisoner of Jesus Christ and a Presbyterian. I want to let you know how you move a mountain whose name is fear. You have to do it with your two hands; the one hand is called truth and you have to accept the truth even when the truth is not what you really want to hear. … The other hand that you are going to use to move the mountain is called trust. If you don’t have truth you will never have trust. I don’t know what the way forward is for each of us, but I know it is not going to be easy. I may not live long enough to get there with you because the load is going to be heavy and the road is going to be long.”
He added that he didn’t want to leave marchers with a downer. “I want to lift you up because the road is long, there are going to be some unhappy places you are going to go; there are going to be some unhappy people you are going to meet; sometimes you are going to be surprised who those unhappy people are. So, I want you prepared; I want you to put on truth and trust and start moving that mountain one little rock at a time — one little rock at a time — make where we live a better place!”
Hunting guide and nationally-known folk musician, Alonzo Pennington of Princeton, departed from his prepared text, however, he sounded a united theme that gun violence is unacceptable and must stop now. He said he makes his living with guns as a hunting guide, but he said high capacity magazines and assault rifles have no place in society. “I believe in the Second Amendment,” he said, noting that some who tout the Second Amendment leave out the part that talks about “a well-regulated militia — they leave out the well-regulated.”
Pennington reminded the crowd that school shootings can and do happen here. “This is why the time to act is now. How many more times must this happen in America?” he queried. “How many more children must die because we have not taken measures to ensure their safety. Can it happen here again? Absolutely! This makes me furious, and you should be too. … There should be a resource officer and metal detector in every school at every entrance. … I believe that asking teachers to pack heat is just a way to save money by not investing in officers and metal detectors that are proven to work. … I believe that expecting our teachers to double as security is a failure waiting to happen. … If we are going to arm our teachers, let’s arm them with updated textbooks and classroom materials. Let’s give teachers the weapons they were trained to use.”
Pennington, and members of his band, closed the two-hour program by performing “You Raise Me Up.” And the students led marchers in a chant that 50 years ago took down a president, with one exception, they used his initials, LBJ. Saturday, students chanted: “Hey, hey NRA, how many kids have you killed today?”