Photo: Suzanne Sausville (WBZ)
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Nearly 100 people gathered at Parkman Bandstand in Boston Common Saturday to protest gun violence in the United States.
The "Stand for a Safer Tomorrow" rally was organized by Emerson College students and included survivors of some of the nation's deadliest school shootings.
"[It's] something I think about every single day," CJ Hoekenga told WBZ NewsRadio. Hoekenga was in the fourth grade when he survived the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 that killed 20 children and six adults.
Now currently living and going to school in Boston, Hoekenga is fighting to change America's gun laws.
"There are statistics we can see that an assault weapons ban would significantly decrease the amount of mass shootings in this country," Hoekenga said. "They are the weapon of choice for mass shooters and I think that they have no place on our streets."
In addition to Hoekenga, other speakers at the rally included Pace McConkie, policy and advocacy manager for the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute; Angelica Fontes from the Mass. Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence; and David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. that killed 17 people and injured 17 others.
"If every state had the same gun death rate as Massachusetts, the state with the strongest gun laws in this country, we could cut gun deaths by 70 percent," Hogg said.
WBZ's Suzanne Sausville (@WBZSausville) reports.