Dueling gun rallies draw devoted advocates from both sides

Jeffrey Schweers and Jordan Anderson | USA Today Florida Network

A blistering Saturday afternoon in downtown Tallahassee set the scene for sparsely attended dueling gun rallies.

At the Capitol, defenders of the right to bear arms chanted against tyranny. About an hour later, at nearby Kleman Plaza, gun safety advocates urged college students to register to vote and support gun control measures.

“I am tired of people telling me I’m too young to do something,” said Diego Pfeiffer, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February and the first speaker at the March for Our Lives rally at Kleman Plaza.

“Yes I am young," the 18-year-old said, "but we are too young to die ... and when you turn 18 you have one more weapon to fight against these guns. You can vote.”

Pfieffer was among the March For Our Lives student leaders who spoke at the Road to Change statewide tour geared toward getting young people registered to vote before the Aug. 28 state primary and the mid-term elections in November.

The statewide tour is part of a nationwide effort. The two tours combined for the first time at the “Rally in Tally.” The nationwide tour is also an effort to keep the momentum going following the March 24 March For Our Lives rally in Washington D.C., which arose out of the February massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and teachers were shot to death.

The rally got off to a late start and was attended by about 150 people, including organizers, volunteers, the media and campaign representatives.

Pfeiffer, David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez and other survivors of the Parkland massacre have become media celebrities. At the event, photographers hovered around Gonzalez and Amanda Cohen with video cameras and boom mics as they hugged and compared their matching short haircuts.

Hogg said he’s demurring from media interviews and instead is working behind the scenes to organize rallies.

“The story is not about me,” he said.

When a reporter observed that the focus has shifted away from banning guns to empowering young people, Hogg said, “I don’t even like to say gun control. I support the Second Amendment and gun safety.”

Rev. Joe Parramore, a Tallahassee resident with the Washington, D.C.-based Faith in Public Life, said he supports the movement from a spiritual perspective. People need to follow the golden rule and be kind to each other again.

“Our goal is to change the narrative on gun violence," he said. "The country has lost its moral compass on this issue."

While staff members for Democrats running for statewide and congressional offices attended the event, rally organizers stressed it was not a partisan event

“Our ultimate goal is to empower youth,” said Alex Wind, a rising senior at Douglas who was on campus the day of the shooting. “I want them to know what is going on in the political system, not to be reactive but be proactive and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Pro-Gun Rally

Blocks away, about 150 pro-gun advocates gathered at the Capitol for The Big Pro Gun Rally.

Candy Martin attended the event because she wants the gun-rights community to be heard. She urged people to not think of guns themselves as evil, but to remember the person who uses the gun is the one who dictates its “intention or motivation.”

“It’s not right to disarm somebody like me or these other people around here,” Martin said. “Let me be armed so I can protect myself.”

Wes Dumey, 44, shared a similar perspective. Dumey drove nearly four hours from Apopka to attend the rally because he “strongly supports” the Second Amendment and Constitution.

“There’s no such thing as gun violence,” Dumey said. “There’s violence that’s committed using a firearm”

More than 14 people spoke to the crowd gathered at the Capitol Courtyard. Tara Dixon Engel, director of strategic development for the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum, once called herself a “fighting young liberal.”

“What motivated me (to participate in the rally) is the belief that we are doing women a disservice by not teaching them about firearms,” Engel said.

The turnout was far fewer than the 2,000 anticipated by the organizers, who billed it as the "largest pro-gun rally in the history of the state." More than just a counterpoint to the Road to Change tour, the event was aimed at showing something the pro-gun movement lacks: diversity.

In a campaign largely dominated by white, straight males, Erin Palette offered a stark alternative as a transgender supporter of the Second Amendment. Her message centered around her belief that “gun rights are queer rights.”

As founder of the pro-gun LGBTQ training group Operation Blazing Sword, Palette’s goal is not to sell guns, but to help people make informed decisions about them through training and education. She hopes that gun owners and the LGBT community can bridge the political and cultural gaps that divide them.

“I want both sides of the country to stop seeing each other as opponents or enemies,” Palette said. “We need to see each other as people.”

Jordan Anderson contributed to this report.

Contact Schweers at jschweers@tallahassee.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.