Mothers of Gunned-Down Children Demand Common-Sense Firearms Laws

Nicole Gardner marched for her daughter Ronique Gardner-Williams who was shot in a drive-by shooting in Richmond, CA. Ronique, a second year college student studying Veterinary medicine, was in a car with friends driving in the Richmond district; she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Ms. Gardner wiped tears from her cheeks, saying, “It’s so hard to talk about, it’s only been six months. It traumatized me. It’s so hard.”

A woman, bearing the signature orange t-shirt, wrapped her arm around Ms. Gardner. “You don’t have to talk,” she said. “Just hand out your fliers.” Gardner’s fliers included a photo of her slain daughter along with a plea to witnesses to come forth. Another mother in mourning came over; the two survivors whispered to one another. Then they lifted their heads to face the cameras.

A young woman pushed a stroller, bearing Nicole’s remaining child, a little girl, too young to understand the magnitude of the day’s events, but one who would, in years to come, feel the weight of her mother’s grief and her big sister’s absence.

Mattie Scott marched (on right in photo, with friend), as she’s been marching for the last twenty years, for her youngest son George C. Scott, shot the day before his son’s sixth birthday. George was an activist trying to better the lives of young males of color. Scott marched for her nephew, Timothy Scott, also shot and killed, at the age of 24. Scott marched for her niece, who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

“I’ve lost three people to violence so I take it personal,” she told me. “My son was 24 years old, father of two. His son was a year and a half, and Gabriel was 5…the very next day was his son’s sixth birthday, so that was his birthday present. ”

Scott has channeled her outrage into action, working tirelessly to combat violence in the African-American community and San Francisco’s minority communities. She is the founder of Healing 4 Our Families & Our Nation, President of the SF Brady Campaign, and Chapter Leader of Mother’s in Charge. She has spent the last twenty years advocating for stronger gun-control laws as well as organizing to heal the trauma faced by families impacted by gun violence.

“We have to stop the killing and start the healing,” she told SocialEarth. We need ‘jobs, opportunities, mental health services, less capitalism and more humanism.’”

Daniel Posey marched for his friends who have been shot. He marched for the bullet wounds that he carries. He marched for the kids that he’s trying to save from the same fate that nearly befell him. Posey is the case manager for United Players, a youth leadership and violence prevention organization dedicated to helping end violence in the streets of San Francisco. “I been shot five times. I got over a hundred friends that been killed by gun violence, thousands that have been shot. It’s got to cease. I’m tired of seeing little kids get killed for no reason. We can do it. We can work together.” Although he says, that he used to have a different view on guns as a young man, that changed after he was incarcerated for ten years for possession of a gun. “I was blessed with enlightenment while I was in prison. I did a lot of educating myself. And just realizing that I don’t need to have a gun to have some power.”

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My own sons marched in front of me, twin nine-year-old boys who were healthy, safe, and as of yet, lucky enough to be untouched by such violence. All around us marched women and men who had not been so lucky. I was reminded of how much work a parent puts in to teach their children right from wrong—and how fast a bullet can silence everything.

One thing has become imminently clear in the last ten years—none of us are truly immune to gun violence any more. While it remains more common in inner-city neighborhoods, gun violence has recently reached its ugly arms outside of any particular neighborhood, and into the kinds of spaces we used to deem safe: elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges, churches, movie theaters, and grocery stores.

At the end of the two-hour march from San Francisco to Marin and back again, the marchers gathered around the flag pole, and beneath the flapping red, white, and blue stars and stripes, there stood an orange halo.

Ronique Gardner-Williams’ little sister.

All photos by Pamela Alma Weymouth unless otherwise noted.