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Jack Sullivan was on the New Jersey highschool the place he teaches historical past when he acquired textual content after textual content reporting there had been a mass capturing on the Tennessee faculty the place his father served as chaplain.
Time for him on Monday morning slowed to the place a couple of moments appeared an eternity earlier than he was in a position to get his mom on the cellphone. She reported that his father, Matthew Sullivan, was protected.
“For about 30 seconds, numerous ideas had been going via my head about what may have occurred,” Jack Sullivan later informed The Each day Beast.
He puzzled what it was like for the mother and father who had younger kids on the Covenant College in Nashville who had been unable to right away contact them.
“Kindergarteners don’t have cell telephones to name and say, ‘Hey, I’m alive,’” he famous.
The worst potential information got here for the households of three 9-year-olds and three employees members, together with the pinnacle of the varsity. Sullivan headed dwelling to Nashville, and he was amongst a number of thousand folks gathered outdoors the state Capitol at 8 a.m. Thursday to demand a ban on assault weapons and what he phrases “frequent sense gun management.” A superb variety of the protesters had been from two close by excessive faculties.
There was restricted house within the foyer and it was closed off earlier than Sullivan was in a position to get inside. He and others found they may acquire entry via underground tunnels operating beneath a number of the surrounding buildings. He joined a number of hundred demonstrators inside.
“Simply numerous sustained chants for gun reform, for legislators to do one thing,” he recalled. “I used to be amazed at how lengthy it saved itself up.”
TENNESSEE-SHOOTING/
Protesters collect contained in the Tennessee State Capitol to name for an finish to gun violence and assist stronger gun legal guidelines after a lethal capturing on the Covenant College in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. March 30, 2023.
Reuters
Round 12:30 p.m., after greater than 4 hours, lots of the teenagers returned to their excessive faculties.
“If I had my approach, I would’ve had folks there the complete day and on daily basis subsequent week,” he mentioned. “However, that being mentioned, it was good to see so many individuals come.”
Sullivan ended up sitting alone on a wooden bench within the foyer holding an indication studying ”DO YOUR JOB” that one other demonstrator had dropped.
“I used to be sporting a Covenant faculty shirt that’s my dad’s,” he mentioned. “I don’t suppose a single Republican lawmaker even bothered to ask about it. A couple of of the Democrat ones did.”
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What a number of Republican legislators did do was publish rank falsehoods in regards to the demonstrators and a trio of Democrat representatives who referred to as for gun reform from the home ground.
“Wannabe communists performed a probing assault upon the state of Tennessee,” Rep. Monty Fritts tweeted. “The Communists failed. Miserably.”
Fritts really declared three weeks in the past that whereas there are individuals who commit violent acts with “all kinds of instruments…there is no such thing as a such factor as gun violence.”
One other lie got here from Speaker of the Home Cameron Sexton. He described the peaceable protest as an “riot.”
“Worse than January 6,” he mentioned.
Sullivan dismissed this as “absolute nonsense.”
“Only a vile mischaracterization of issues,” he mentioned. “With the intention of drawing consideration away from the topic at hand.”
Sullivan reported, “It was very clearly peaceable. Not a hand was laid on a legislator. Nor was something damaged into. Everybody went via safety. Nobody possessed a weapon. And nobody disrupted the legislative session.”
TENNESSEE-SHOOTING/
Protesters collect contained in the Tennessee State Capitol to name for an finish to gun violence and assist stronger gun legal guidelines after a lethal capturing on the Covenant College in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. March 30, 2023.
Reuters
Sullivan left round 1:30 p.m., sorry so many had left, however glad he had come.
“It felt good to sort of get out a number of the anger that I felt by demonstrating and at the least feeling like my voice was being heard, if not acquired,” he mentioned.
His father later retweeted a photograph that The Tennessee Holler posted of his son sitting alone on the bench in a Covenant College shirt, hold
ing the signal.
“My man Jack. Love him so,” his father wrote.
As the varsity chaplain, Matthew Sullivan teaches Bible research and holds each day chapels. His duties now prolong to consoling the households of the murdered kids and comforting the many individuals who had been traumatized by the assault.
“He’s attending a funeral now,” Jack Sullivan informed The Each day Beast on Friday afternoon.
That was confirmed by what the daddy later posted on Fb.
“First funeral in the present day,” he wrote. “Could the Lord wrap His large arms across the household via us.”
As the varsity chaplain, he later posted, “The primary funeral was so very stunning. Dying does NOT have the ultimate phrase.”
Jack Sullivan will now return to the highschool in Trenton the place he teaches historical past, which now contains one other mass faculty capturing as nothing is completed about weapons.
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