Another Protest

    This past Wednesday I attended my first stand/sit-in (see post from 6/30/2016) to protest our country's epidemic of gun violence and to call for stricter gun laws. Yesterday I attended my second anti-gun violence demonstration, this time in Hilliard, a northwestern suburb of Columbus, along Cemetery Road, outside the office of Congressman Steve Stivers.

      This demonstration was organized, as was  Wednesday's,  by the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence and, once again, was held in conjunction with other protests held this week around the state.

     Our modus operandi was pretty much the same as it was on Wednesday, as it was, I assume, on all the other days and  in all the other places where the protests were held, that is, we stood along the sidewalk holding up signs signs for the people driving by to see, sometimes chanting, sometimes singing.

    Former Ohio Representative Mary Jo Kilroy was also there.

      One of the protesters suggested that some of us should be standing on the other side of the street for the benefit of the traffic going in both directions, a thought which had occurred to me, too.  So half a dozen of us crossed over and began protesting on that side of the street in front of a Nationwide Insurance franchise.
       But after a few minutes an annoyed-looking young guy in a dress shirt and tie  (and of a pro-gun persuasion) came out and told us to move away from his building as he didn't want his business associated with us.   Some moved a few yards down the street, some stood their ground as, after all, we were on public property,  but I crossed back over to the other side of the street.
    I know that sometimes implementing change requires some upheaval of the social order, but I wasn't yet ready to personally bring it on at that moment.

     Our protest was scheduled to run from 11:30 to 1 pm, and shortly before 1pm our organizer led us to the office of Steve Stivers for another 8-minute sit-in to draw attention to the fact that every eight hours an Ohioan is killed by gun violence.
        We stopped along the way for a photo op, and for a brief chat with a friendly police officer who just wanted to make sure us old folks weren't intending to mix it up in Mr. Stivers' office, which of course we weren't.

    I   n fact we were welcomed into Stivers' office by his very nice aide, whose name, I think, was Alan and who offered us bottles of water and let us sit or stand along the hall way while he listened to what we wanted to communicate to Congressman Stivers and the rest of Congress.

     About a dozen people spoke, some very eloquently, doctors, counselors, teachers, people who'd personally experienced the pain and grief of gun violence, or those who simply were able to give voice to the need for better gun laws.
     I was moved by their personal stories and well-expressed words and I wondered if Congressman Stivers's young aide was likewise moved,

...or if he was just following orders to humor us.
      In any case, I thought, we're doing what we can.