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topicnews · September 21, 2024

Nonprofit opens Detroit office to advocate for gun safety ahead of election

Nonprofit opens Detroit office to advocate for gun safety ahead of election

Organizers of Everytown for Gun Safety are setting up camp in Michigan and opening a field office in Detroit just 44 days before the 2024 presidential election.

Volunteers from the gun violence prevention nonprofit and other grassroots groups gathered at the field office in the New Center area on Saturday to celebrate the new space and call on local voters to support “gun common sense” legislation. Organizers are not disclosing the office’s location for security reasons.

Everytown for Gun Safety focuses on uniting people in the fight for gun safety laws, organizers told The News.

Ann Anderson, co-director of the Michigan chapter of Moms Demand Action, which is part of Everytown for Gun Safety, said voters in November will be choosing between increasingly polarized candidates whose stances on gun control vary widely.

“This is a critical moment for advocates … to ensure that elected officials across Michigan share our vision for the future we want for our country, where communities can live without fear of gun violence,” Anderson said.

Most recently, a shooting at a street festival in east Detroit sparked public outcry on July 7, killing two people and wounding 19 others. Another gunman shot and killed one man and wounded another at Eastern Market on Sunday. Local law enforcement agencies reported investigations into threats at several schools in the Detroit metropolitan area, including a false alarm by police at a Royal Oak high school on Friday.

Michigan has made great progress on gun legislation with a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, Anderson said.

Anderson said she was working as a paralegal in a Southfield office building in the 1990s when a gunman entered the building.

She said she hid under her desk while the situation unfolded several floors below her. She said she never saw the gunman who killed two people and injured several more before killing himself, but the day remained unforgettable for her.

“It’s an agonizing feeling,” Anderson said. “You don’t know how long you’re going to be there. It’s all about ‘Am I going to survive?’ And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Anderson said her own traumatic experience made her change her mind about the threat of gun violence threatening a younger generation. Anderson joined Moms Demand Action after a 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people.

Taylor Johnson-King, 19, said gun violence has already shaped her life in Detroit. Johnson-King said several of her family members have died from gun violence while she participated in school shooting drills every year in elementary school.

Now a student at Wayne State University, Johnson-King tries to feel as safe as possible on campus. She said other students respond positively when they hear she is a campus organizer for Students Demand Action. With the new office a few blocks from the WSU campus, she is determined to get other students involved in the organization as well.

Bonny Whitaker, 76, felt old emotions when she heard that a gunman had killed two men at Eastern Market on Sunday after a Detroit Lions game.

Whitaker’s 18-year-old granddaughter, Tikiya Allen, was killed by a drive-by shooter in 2021, she said. Allen, an Oakland University student and aspiring nurse anesthetist, had been riding her bike down the block when she died.

Whitaker and her family are still struggling with the loss, she said tearfully.

“That’s what got me into it because I’m committed to the fact that we’re losing our future,” said Whitaker of Detroit. “So many young people, and suddenly it’s gone. And that’s so unfair and just devastating because, you know, it’s gone, and yet we’re left behind.”

Whitaker had just bought tickets to a late-season Lions game for herself and her husband when she heard the news Sunday, she said. Now she’s wondering how safe she’ll be when they attend the game, she said.

Shawanna Vaugh, 46, entered the new field office on Saturday with the intention of reaching at least one person on the phone.

The Detroit native’s trauma from gun violence dates back to the murder of her brother in 1986, she said. Vaughn has been committed to defending gun laws ever since, she said.

Vaughn barely slept in the eight days immediately following the July 4 weekend mass killing on Detroit’s east side, she said, and spent that time working with people in the nearby community through her mental health organization, Silent Cry Inc.

More than two months after the shooting, the organization’s staff are still working in the neighborhood, she said.

From lax gun purchase laws to preventable school shootings, Vaughn is frustrated that so many conversations about gun laws ultimately revolve around people’s fear of losing their Second Amendment rights, she said.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, threats against schools across the U.S. increased after a 14-year-old shot and killed four people at a Georgia high school. That fear is still palpable in Michigan, where threats of school shootings have put many students and their families on alert at the start of the school year, Vaughn said.

Vaughn believes sensible gun laws and hiring more social workers and mental health nurses – not just police officers – could be a path to survival, she said.

“This is a lifelong struggle,” Vaughn said of fighting for gun laws and grieving for her brother. “And no one can tell me what day I should be over it, because I’ll never be over it. No one can tell me when my pain is over. I do this because it makes me realize that this is how I celebrate my brother. This is how I honor my brother.”

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