“Five years ago Kobe Dennis and myself decided that there was a lot of violence that was going on in the community so we decided to start a new organization called Lock Arms for Peace,” said Diana Garlington to the more than two dozen people lining the sidewalk on Elmgrove Avenue in South Providence. “What this does is it shows that we still have unity and peace in our community. We want to show everyone that even though there’s a lot of violence going on, there’s still people who care and there’s still people who are going to reach out and try to save our community and stop these senseless acts of violence.”

The number of people attending this event seems to grow each time.

Garlington is the Survivor Fellow and Survivor Member lead for the Rhode Island Chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. SHe organizes a Lock Arms for Peace event just about every month. Barbara Swanson, the former Survivor Member Lead, spoke next.

“We lose a hundred people a day to gun violence,” said Swanson. “We lose ten children every day to gun violence… This has got to stop.”

Moms Demand Action, said Swanson, “started after Newtown but it’s not only school shootings. We’re trying to get involved in in every day shootings – 100 people a day – that’s not school shootings, that’s regular gun shootings.

“People always say at the State House, ‘You know, it’s not law abiding citizens, it’s criminals,'” continued Swanson. “This is my big complaint about people. They say, ‘The guns come from the street.’ Well, they’re not growing here. They’re coming from a law-abiding citizens.

“So we’ve got to get the guns off the street and we need help. We need your help.”

• 

• 

---

UpriseRI is entirely supported by donations and advertising. Every little bit helps:
Become a Patron!