Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jackie was one of the 19 children killed in the Uvalde school shooting on May 24, spoke briefly at a rally Saturday in Austin for more restrictive gun legislation.
“I promised my daughter when she was in the hospital that we would keep on fighting until something is done,” he said. “Enough is enough.”
The rally outside the Capitol was one of several held across the nation Saturday by March For Our Lives, a nonprofit youth-led organization dedicated to ending gun violence.
Two students at Anderson High School, Shayna Levy and Levi Langley, organized the Austin rally. Despite temperatures reaching into the triple digits, several hundred people filled the south lawn of the Capitol on Saturday morning carrying signs, including ones that read “Will I die carrying my backpack?” and “The New American Dream: to avoid getting shot.”
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Cazares’ other daughter, Jazmin, also spoke at the Austin rally about losing her sister and her cousin Annabelle Rodriguez in the shooting at Robb Elementary School.
“I’m unbelievably angry but I’m not going to turn that anger into hate,” she said. “I’m going to channel that anger to create real change.”
Jazmin said the day her sister died, she was late waking up so she did not see her before she left for school. “That will haunt me for the rest of my life,” she said.
Jazmin said she later got a call that day about the shooting at her sister’s campus and also heard rumors there might be a shooting at her high school. “While I was fearing for my own life I didn’t know she had lost hers,” she said.
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Jillian Dworin, who just graduated from Anderson High School and spoke Saturday at the rally, said the restrictions she wants on guns include universal background checks and raising the age when a person can buy a gun.
“I can’t be trusted to rent a hotel room or buy a bottle of wine, why can I buy a gun?” she said. “I can drive three minutes to Academy and buy an AR-15.”
Amy Jaggers, a teacher at an Austin high school, told the crowd that she never became a teacher knowing that one day she might have to carry a gun in her classroom or “potentially shoot one of her students.” She called for more restrictive gun laws but said she feared nothing would happen.
“I will start a new school year with the same thoughts… in case something happens which students will even fit through my 2-foot-wide window on the second floor where I work?” she said.
Chas Moore, executive director of the Austin Justice Coalition, spoke at the rally and said it wasn’t enough that the participants were there, they needed to do more.
“Yes, it’s our lawmakers’ fault, but it’s our fault because every time something happens we as a people say we’re going to do something, and then we get excited and come around September, October, November we fall back into a lull ,” he said.
He urged people to vote, but he also asked people to think about other possibilities. “How about we as a community create a space for parents not to send their kids back to school until something actually happens?” Moore said.
“The problem is the moment you put your child on the school bus, back to school it shows you are complacent with what happened to change the thing you said you wanted to change,” he said.
Blair Putnam said he attended the rally because his brother, San Marcos police officer Justin Putnam, was killed in 2020 by a man with an assault weapon while responding to a domestic violence call.
“I’m sick of this happening,” he said. “The Uvalde shooting triggered my PTSD.” He said the state needs more restrictive gun laws.
Cara Nobles, who came from Fort Hood to attend the rally, said she wants more restrictive gun laws because she has a child with autism who cannot understand commands given during active shooter drills at school. “She gets panicked,” Nobles said.
As the rally was ending, Javier Cazares stood on the Capitol steps quietly watching the crowd. He said he wanted more restrictive gun laws, but he also owns an AR-15.
“I’m a responsible gun owner,” he said.
Cazares said he used the rifle to target shoot and also bought it to protect his family because they live near the southern border.
The day Jaclyn Cazares died, he said, he last saw her alive at an awards ceremony at 10 am at school and blew her a kiss goodbye.
“She was happy,” he said.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism