On Tuesday, around 40 protestors rallied on the Main Green to protest gun violence following the Dec. 13 mass shooting. Led by Brown’s chapter of Students Demand Action, students marched to the Rhode Island State House to meet with lawmakers and demand legal action through gun reform.
“Mass shootings can never be normalized, and thoughts and prayers can’t bring victims back,” Eno Thomson-Tribe ’29 said to protestors gathered in front of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center. Thomson-Tribe was a close friend of Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov ’29, one of the students who was killed in the shooting.
“Standing here right now is the last place I want to be. I should be getting lunch with him in Blue Room, right behind me, venting about upcoming midterms,” Thomson-Tribe said. In his speech, he called for common-sense gun safety laws that “may have saved (his) friend,” emphasizing that legal action can help prevent deaths from gun violence.
“I am refusing to let my friend’s death become merely another statistic in a laundry list of preventable shootings,” Thomson-Tribe said. “Instead, I am marching to the capital to try to honor Mukhammad’s legacy with action and with reform.”
Thomson-Tribe marched with around 30 other students down College Hill and along South Main Street. Along the way, Thomas-Tribe called for “books not bullets” and asserted “enough is enough.” Several Providence community members stopped to join in on chants and show their support for the demonstrators.
At the State House, students met with lawmakers to advocate for stricter gun control, according to SDA@Brown co-founder Caleb Schultz ’26.
Schultz said the group focused their lobbying efforts on advocating for an update to the Handgun Safety Certification, an exam required to purchase a handgun or ammunition in Rhode Island. The test for the certificate — also known as the blue card — is “really easy” and can be retaken with the exact same questions if failed, Schultz said.
“It’s not a good test, so we want to change that,” Schultz said. “We’re demanding action for better laws to protect Rhode Islanders,” Schultz said.
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management did not immediately respond to The Herald’s request for comment.
Schultz added that campus anti-gun activism has seen an increased urgency and “engagement from Brown students” following the shooting.
“A lot of people expressed that they want to take action,” Schultz said. “In order to make real change, we need as many people as possible to come together.”
Since last semester, SDA@Brown has almost quintupled its membership, The Herald previously reported.
In a speech to gathered protestors, SDA@Brown co-leader Michael Citarella ’27 emphasized the need to come together to “show the R.I. Legislature that we are not just going to quietly move on from what happened here on Dec. 13.”
Benjamin Buka ’26, who accompanied the group into the State House, emphasized the importance of having the opportunity to talk with lawmakers in-person.
“We’re just a short walk away from the State House,” Buka said. “We kind of have an obligation to come out here, in a state where there’s a potential for real progress to be made.”
Charis Jo, a postdoctoral research fellow in classics, attended Tuesday’s protest to show her support for students at Brown. She said she hopes “to see much stricter laws enforced around gun possession and ownership.”
“Every level of government can take steps to prevent gun violence, and yet far too many choose to do nothing,” Citarella said. “We have an obligation to speak up now and fight to protect future generations of students.”
Zarina Hamilton is a university news editor covering activism and affinity & identity. She is sophomore from near Baltimore, Maryland and is studying mechanical engineering. In her free time, you can find her reading, journaling, or doing the NYT mini crossword.
