LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. — Many different faith leaders will gather at a Lake Worth Beach mosque just south of Lantana Road on Friday evening for a small rally calling to stop gun violence in the wake of a deadly mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
"People are really in a quandary about gun violence," said Rabbi Barry Silver.
Silver thought the mosque, whose name translates into "love," was the perfect spot to bring people together over the tragic news from Texas this week.
The mass shooting and murder at an elementary school has left the country saddened and looking for answers.
"1,970 to now more than 2,000 different shootings at schools," said David Riedman, who runs the School Shooting Database Project in Orlando, the only one of its kind , an idea he said he thought of after the Parkland school shooting in 2018. "What we also capture is all types of school violence on campus and that’s to inform every school security effort."
The University of Central Florida graduate student with a background in counter terrorism, his database categorizes every type of shooting event at a school, including the Texas mass shooting, providing a research tool that Riedman said is vital.
"What we can see is common characteristics between the shooters. A pathway to violence they followed. And if we can recognize that early, we can stop the next shooting before it happens," Riedman said.
And that’s exactly how many feel at the small mosque.
Silver, who organized this event, saif this is likely just one of many types of rallies on this issue going on around the country.