Thousands of protesters stream to Washington’s National Mall to demand gun law changes
- The March for Our Lives protest was the highest-profile of countrywide demonstrations on Saturday marking a renewed push for gun control
- Scores turned out on the National Mall well before the rally began, holding up signs, including one that said: ‘Children aren’t replaceable, senators are. Vote’
Thousands of people streamed to the National Mall for the highest-profile of countrywide demonstrations on Saturday marking a renewed push for gun control after recent mass shootings from Uvalde, Texas, to Buffalo, New York, that activists say should compel Congress to act.
Organisers hoped the second March for Our Lives rally would draw as many as 50,000 people to the Washington Monument. While that would be far less than the original 2018 march that filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people, they decided to focus this time on smaller marches at an estimated 300 locations.
Despite rain in the nation’s capital, scores turned out on the monument grounds well before the rally began, holding up signs, including one that said “Children aren’t replaceable, senators are. Vote.” A girl carried a sign that said, “I want to feel safe at school.”
“We want to make sure that this work is happening across the country,” said Daud Mumin, co-chairman of the march’s board of directors and a recent graduate of Westminster College in Salt Lake City. “This work is not just about DC, it’s not just about senators.”
The first march was spurred by the February 14, 2018, killings of 14 pupils and three staff members by a former pupil at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That massacre sparked the creation of the youth-led March For Our Lives movement, which successfully pressured the Republican-dominated Florida state government to enact sweeping gun control reforms.
The Parkland pupils then took aim at gun laws in other states and nationally, launching March for Our Lives and holding the big rally in Washington on March 24, 2018.
The group did not match the Florida results at the national level, but has persisted in advocating for gun restrictions since then, as well as taking part in voter registration drives.
