Students spearhead largest-ever US protest for gun control

WASHINGTON: Florida high school student Aalayah Eastmond will join a massive crowd of Americans – expected to number in the hundreds of thousands – taking part in nationwide protests for gun control.

The 17-year- old says she will be marching not only for tougher gun laws – but for the classmate whose body she hid beneath during last month’s massacre at her school.

“Columbine happened – nothing’s changed. Sandy Hook happened – nothing’s changed. Parkland happened – nothing’s changed,” Eastmond said.

“The march is just the start,” she said at an event with lawmakers, prosecutors and members of law enforcement on Capitol Hill.

“We will fight for this until change happens.”

Fourteen students and three adult faculty members were killed on Feb 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland by a troubled 19-year- old former classmate armed with a semiautomatic rifle.

Students at the school in southern Florida are the driving force behind the ‘March For Our Lives,’ which is to be held on Saturday in Washington and other US cities.

The event is expected to be the largest- ever protest for gun control in the United States, where there are more than 30,000 gun-related deaths a year.

Organisers say more than 800 marches are being held across the country and around the world under the slogan # NeverAgain – the Washington event alone is expected to attract at least 500,000 people. — AFP