A “non-partisan” political activism group that calls for gun control held a rally in Nashville Wednesday night on the year anniversary of the mass shooting at The Covenant School.
“Together, we will wear red and link arms as we mark the anniversary of one of our community’s darkest days and honor the memory of the hundreds of Tennessee lives lost to preventable firearm tragedies over the last year,” Voices for a Safer Tennessee said on its website. “Our goal is to form a chain of 13,000 people from Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt through Centennial Park and up Charlotte Avenue to our state capitol.”
The Tennessee Star reported on the founding of Voices for a Safer Tennessee in July 2023, as it and a host of other anti-gun groups set up shop in Tennessee.
The organization is run by former Republican strategist Todd Cruse, who headed a Political Action Committee (PAC) called DentaQuest PAC, which in 2022 donated heavily to an establishment Republican training organization called GOPAC, as well as the Democratic Lieutenant Governor’s Organization and ActBlue, the preferred fundraising platform for Democrats.
The organization encouraged those who couldn’t attend to watch the live stream of the event. Voices for a Safer Tennessee live-streamed the event, which began at 5 p.m., on its website.
“Whether you are part of the human chain or joining [from] home/work, you can honor the families of Covenant and all Tennesseans affected by firearm tragedies by joining the livestream of our program,” according to a post on X.
Various group members, religious leaders, and activists spoke from a podium.
“Change takes time. Don’t lose sight of the fact that change is slow,” Cruse told the crowd in a brief speech. “But if we stay together, work together, have conversation together, we can actually make things happen.”
Dr. Donovan McAbee is a liberal arts professor at Belmont University.
Describing March 27 as “a day that casts a long dark shadow over all of us here in Nashville.”
“Together, we choose not to give gun violence the final word, and we move forward together in hope for a better day to come for Tennesseans across the state and for people throughout our country,” he said.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter.
Photo “Safer TN Linking Arms for Change Event” by Voices for a Safer Tennessee.
