Gun issue stokes passions at Lewiston rally

LEWISTON — On a drizzly, gray Saturday, nearly 50 people took part in a what was billed as a gun safety rally at Brackenbury Square in Lewiston.

A handful of pro-gun-rights counterprotesters also turned out. Emotions were evident and tensions flared at one point during the afternoon gathering downtown, but order was quickly restored.

March for Our Lives is a national organization that held vigils at more than 300 locations around the country in the wake of several mass shootings over the past several weeks. The group advocates for safer gun policies and honors the lives of those lost in shootings.

It was started by students and survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed and 17 wounded on Feb. 14, 2018.

Amanda Gill organized the Lewiston rally. On Saturday, she started the vigil with a speech addressing shootings that happened in the past month — in Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Tulsa, Okla.

“It’s been four years since we were last here, for this same reason,” she said. “I am in front of you as nothing more than a mother and citizen, though after the Parkland shooting I found myself becoming something I had never really been — an activist.”

Gill, of Lewiston, helped put together the Moms Demand Action group in Lewiston. In that role, she said, she met with families who had lost loved ones to violence and she attended training for gun safety in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.

“Hearing a mother’s story of losing their baby in such a violent way hits different,” she said. “Mothers who would sleep in the cemetery to be near their children, not knowing how to go on, mothers who want to make their child’s death matter by changing the narrative surrounding gun violence.

“And yet again, here we are in the same place, wondering why this happened, how this happened.”

After Gill spoke, six area high school students took the stage to read the names of people killed in recent shootings. At a grocery store in Buffalo, 10 were killed and three injured; at a hospital in Tulsa, five were killed and 10 injured; at a high school in Uvalde, 19 students and two teachers were killed, and 17 injured.

A moment of silence followed.

Stefanie Krantz, the climate change coordinator with the Nez Perce Tribe, took the platform next and addressed the idea of arming teachers as a preventative measure.

“Take a moment to consider the absurdity that we feel comfortable asking teachers to become combat-ready,” she said. “It should be absurd to ask teachers to be armed and ready to kill someone.”

During Krantz’s speech, a counterprotester engaged with a group of minors, one being Gill’s daughter. The situation escalated as protesters crowded the area, and event security quickly separated the man from the students. More arguing broke out as the counterprotester yelled sexual assault statistics, and rally advocates yelled back in unison, “Let her speak.”

Gill took the stage to deescalate the situation.

“Obviously we are all very passionate here,” she said, reminding the crowd there were children present. The crowd quieted and Krantz was able to finish her speech.

Later, when a reporter asked them for comment, counterprotesters declined.

Sam Weeks, of Lewiston, a vigil participant, said he was there because he is tired of seeing headlines of kids being killed in schools and is tired of seeing gun violence in the United States.

“I have my ideas of what could be a solution, and other people have their ideas,” he said. “We’re too caught up fighting each other, as demonstrated here today, that we can’t seem to solve the problem. I can go off on (a) rant about my politics, but at the end of the day, the kids, and people in their everyday lives, are being murdered. Something has to happen.”

Weeks said he would like to see a mandatory waiting period before being able to buy a firearm. He said Hawaii has a 14-day waiting period and the state has the fewest shootings in the country.

“We’re not here to take guns away,” he said. “We’re in Idaho. We’re one of the most armed states in the country — we love to hunt and we want to be protected. We appreciate the Second Amendment, but we recognize that something is wrong here, and we need to address it.”

Pearce can be reached at epearce@dnews.com or on Twitter @Emily_A_Pearce.