WORCESTER, Mass. - On Friday, a protest was held outside the DCU Center in Worcester to demand action on gun violence prevention as Massachusetts’ top Democrats gathered inside for the party's nominating convention. 

June 3 was National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and the large crowd heard from a long list of speakers including Attorney General Maura Healey and the Central Massachusetts chapter of Moms Demand Action. 

Among that group was Dr. Peter McConarty, who has spent decades pushing for reform legislation after a shooting he'll never forget. 

On July 27, 1983, McConarty and his colleagues were going about their day's work at a community health center in San Francisco -- when everything changed.

"A 76-year-old man came in and he was looking for my partner," McConarty said. "He was put in a room with my partner, he pulled out a handgun and shot my partner dead."

It had happened right outside McConarty's office, and when he went to investigate, the gunman shot him five times. 

"He went to reload his gun, and I ran past him to call the police," McConarty said.

Nearly four decades later, McConarty remembers the day in sharp detail, but he's more interested in preventing future tragedies than reliving his own. 

"One thing that frustrates me is that the attention peaks when we have horrendous things like Buffalo and Uvalde," McConarty said. "This is just part of being in America now that people are shooting each other at the rate of over 100 a day."

In his advocacy work with the Central Massachusetts chapter of Moms Demand Action, McConarty says he sees an avenue for change. 

"I think that people speaking out and voting their minds, pushing for sensible gun legislation is the only way that we're going to make progress,” he said.

2021 was one of the deadliest years on record for gun violence, but protests like the March for our Lives and Friday's demonstration give McConarty hope that younger voices are now leading the charge.

"It's a groundswell of outrage, it's a groundswell of fear, it's a groundswell of action that is going to push this movement right along," he said.