OCEAN CITY – While drivers tooted their car horns in support, a couple hundred people marched across the Ninth Street Bridge June 11, as part of a nationwide movement of more than 450 marches planned to demand an end to the nation’s gun violence epidemic.
Chants of “No more silence. End gun violence,” “Serve the USA, not the NRA,” and “Protect Kids, Not Guns” could be heard, as protestors of all ages walked to the Welcome Center and turned around, about 1.5 miles, under cloudy skies that seemed to threaten rain. Most carried signs protesting mass shootings, pro-gun politicians, and impacts on students, while others carried signs encouraging a stop to the violence.
This mass mobilization was organized by March for Our Lives and follows weeks of testimony from people directly impacted – survivors and families of victims – who have shared their stories in congressional hearings and to the media. As talks stretch through the month, grassroots organizers like the youth-led group, March for Our Lives, which began after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, shootings, are mobilizing.
March for Our Lives founder David Hogg urged people outside of the U.S. to protest gun violence at U.S. embassies.
“My heart was ripped to shreds when Uvalde happened,” explained Stefany Mayz, an Egg Harbor Township mother of two, who organized the Ocean City event with members of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, Students Demand Action, and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
“My heart was ripped to shreds when Buffalo happened and Parkland,” she added. “All highly preventable incidents. I thought, ‘What can I do?’ and I needed to do something.”
Mayz described herself as a singer/songwriter, often writing songs about social issues.
“Four years ago, after the Parkland attack, I wrote a song called “Terror Attack” that wasn’t released at the time because of some personal things going on in my life. I didn’t think it would live through the test of time, but it’s more relevant today than the day I wrote it.
“I want to make the song irrelevant,” she declared. “I am here to end gun violence. We want action now. We need expanded background checks, more buy-back events, increased and improved standards of gun ownership, and a ban on assault-style weapons.”
Keely Magee, youth coordinator for the state Democratic Committee and one of the Ocean City march organizers, said she became involved in the anti-gun movement after the 2018 murder of 17 people and 17 others injured when a 19-year-old opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. That event spurred the birth of March for Our Lives, and the youth organization marched in Washington, D.C., at the time. Magee was there and has been involved ever since.
The group also sponsored voter registration at the march.
After the walk, several speakers talked about the need to end gun violence, including Mayz, Dan Kurkowski, chairman of the Cape May County Democratic Party, Charlene Hoverter, a survivor of gun violence, college students, and others.
Kurkowski called for “more common sense” when it came to how gun laws should be changed, noting that laws had to be realistic. However, he cautioned people “not to become numb no matter how common” and often the killings occur. He pointed to his young daughter, noting she and other children and grandchildren were the reason why today’s youth had to be protected and the gun laws changed.
Hoverter, of Ocean Township, was born in Chicago, where her sister, Diane Mokos Kriz, a nurse-midwife, was shot to death outside her church in 1986. At the time, Kriz was 46 years old and the mother of four girls.
Hoverter talked about the impact of her sister’s murder on her family, and how she belonged to a club “no one wants to belong to.”
“We should be outraged at every single death. I am grief-stricken that gun violence is the number one cause of death for our children,” Hoverter said.
“There are 100 deaths and 200 people wounded daily from gun shootings,” she added, “and the pain never goes away. We need common-sense laws.”
She urged everyone to “text HONOR to 64433” for “the next steps to take” to end gun violence.
To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.
