'That's the refrain: Do something:' Dozens gather in Wildwood for vigil after Texas school shooting

WILDWOOD — Katina Stephens has done the math and she has had enough.

"There have been more mass shootings in 2022 than there have been days," Stephens told a crowd of nearly 100 people Saturday outside Wildwood City Hall.

In fact, according to Gun Violence Archive, there have been 216 mass shootings since January 1. Saturday marked day 148, and the group has counted more than 17,000 deaths from gun violence in that time — more than 118 per day.

Those grim calculations pushed area religious leaders to come together, pray for change and to exhort their listeners to act. Speakers from a range of faiths and traditions invited the public to an interfaith prayer vigil inspired by the recent shootings that left 10 people dead in Buffalo, New York and killed 21 people in Uvalde, Texas — 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.

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Rev. Drew Willard read aloud the names of the people lost in those shootings, a roll call lasting two and a half minutes. People bowed their heads and held hands as they listened. Finally, Willard ended the list with a prayer for the dead.

Then people looked to each other for ways to end the violence that shocked all of them over the past two weeks.

"This is one opportunity to gather the community together," said Cindy Grossman with the Tri-County Unitarian Universalists. "We have many things in this community that we can agree on but always focus on the places where we're polarized."

Grossman said that a majority of Americans support background checks for all gun purchases. She points to the high-capacity magazines — often as many as 30 rounds — as another area ripe for change. Finally, she reminded the group that many of the mass shootings in America are perpetrated by young men under the age of 21.

"How can we prevent an 18-year-old from buying a bottle of beer but not restrain them from buying a weapon of war?" she asked.

Brien Sesler II, a Marion County high school student, has lived his entire life with the specter of gun violence in his school. Sesler, like all Florida students, attends regular active shooter drills. He practices barricading the doors to his classroom and hiding in closets, then returns to his studies.

For Sesler, school shootings are a fact of life. He remembers the April 20, 2018 incident at Forest High School in Ocala that left one student wounded on the day kids planned to walk out of their classrooms to protest gun violence. The date wasn't chosen at random — it is the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. 

"I've been through the Forest school shooting. Everybody was panicking and honestly at first I thought I was going to die. Then I was like 'I have the lord on my side,'" Sesler said. "But still, I had to comfort my friends. Now I'm just used to it."

Grossman, Stephens and other speakers all called for change at home, at schools and in our politics.

"We must be moved to action and make our prayerful voices heard at the ballot box," Stephens said.

Willard says people shouldn't allow themselves to become numb over the issue. While it is natural to feel helpless in the face of grisly acts and somber statistics, he wants people to see it as a reason to act.

"Stay engaged and be ready when the opportunity arises to speak up, act, vote, do something. That's the the refrain: do something," said Willard.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: In wake of Uvalde school shooting, interfaith vigil held in Wildwood