Foster City leaders and community members held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night, remembering the victims of Tuesday's mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
The name and age of each victim of Tuesday’s Texas elementary school massacre were read aloud, a bell ring also happened in their memory during the vigil.
There were also people, who attended the vigil and called for stricter gun laws as some elected officials said "enough is enough."
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“We just need to stand up and push back and if that means pushing back against the National Rifle Association, we need to do that,” San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa.
Mark Weber, a Foster City schoolteacher, was shaking during the vigil, barely able to call for support for legislation already passed by the House of Representatives, that would increase background checks.
“I would like the senators in Washington D.C. to pass the HR 8 bill. To do something like that,” Weber said.
Foster City Mayor Richa Awasthi also spoke during the vigil.
“So many moms last night, including me, we're feeling that, to be able to be close to their children. To be able to hug their children, and to be able to have their children alive is a privilege. It’s not right,” she said.
Among the more than 150 people who attended the vigil, the Vaidyanathan family said they were finding a reason to believe that society is moving, however slowly, in the right direction.
“A lot of things can be done. Yes, mental health, definitely. That is driving a lot of things. But at the end of the day, it is the guns that are causing what’s happening,” said Ramnath Vaidyanathan.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence helped put together Wednesday's rally, but they said that the real work comes with phone banks, text banks and calling senators from the red states to demand that elusive change.
