March For Our Lives rallies: ‘The voters are coming’
Hundreds of thousands fill America’s streets to demand tough gun laws
Hundreds of thousands of students – and their supporters – packed the streets in Washington, D.C., and around the globe Saturday to make a powerful statement against gun violence and call on lawmakers to pass stricter laws or face their wrath at the polls.
Busload after busload filled the nation’s capital with students from across the country, including some from as far away as California and Minnesota, for the March For Our Lives, a rally announced just days after a Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
In impassioned speeches in which emotions hit fever pitch, student after student from Marjory Stoneman gave a rallying cry to wild cheers from the thousands assembled along Pennsylvania Avenue.
“We are going to make this the voting issue,” said David Hogg, a Stoneman Douglas student and organizer of the rally. “We are going to take this to every election, to every state, and every city. We are going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run not as politicians, but as Americans.”
A tearful Emma Gonzalez, whose speech at a Fort Lauderdale rally three days after the Valentine’s Day shooting galvanized the student movement, hushed the crowd Saturday by naming all of her fallen friends who “would never again” do the simplest things in life.
Cameron Kasky, another Stoneman Douglas student, said the movement’s message to politicians was simple: “Either represent the people or get out.”
“The people are demanding a law banning the sale of assault weapons, the people demand we prohibit the sale of high-capacity magazines, the people demand universal background checks,” Kasky said. “Stand for us or beware. The voters are coming.“
The Stoneman Douglas students, many of whom are just reaching voting age, vowed to work to make reducing gun violence the central issue of their generation.
Many of the Florida students took particularly sharp jabs at their junior senator, Republican Marco Rubio, who they note has received about $3.3 million in campaign contributions from the NRA and gun lobby during his political career.
The students wore orange price tags of $1.05, the amount Rubio has received from the gun lobby divided by the number of students in Florida, to suggest that’s how much they were worth to him.
About 800 sister marches were scheduled in every U.S. state and on every continent, all with the same mission: end gun violence and push politicians to take up gun-control legislation.
In big cities, including Boston, Chicago and New York, massive crowds gathered. Smaller cities, such as Cincinnati and Red Banks, New Jersey, also saw large and passionate crowds assemble.
“Our voices are being stifled,” said 17year-old Rasleen Krupp, who spoke to marchers at the Cincinnati rally. “At the end of this movement, we will be saving our own lives. But this is only the first mile.”
Matt Collins, a gun owner and defense contractor from Fairfax, Virginia, said he once bristled at calls for stricter gun laws, but repeated school shootings changed his mind. Collins said he has friends who disagree with him.
“I have been frustrated every time something like this happens,” Collins said. “I own a gun, I believe in the Second Amendment. I think there are measures short of repealing the second amendment that can make everyone safer.”
The march organizers also recruited teens from urban areas to speak about how gun violence is impacting their lives.
Edna Chavez, a student at Los Angeles’ Manuel Arts High School Living whose older brother was gunned down in front of their home in 2007, said gun violence has become too normalized in neighborhoods like her own.
“I have lived in South L.A. all my life and have lost many loved ones to gun violence,” Chavez said. “This is normal – normal to the point I’ve learned to duck from bullets before I learned to read.”
Hours before the official start of the Washington rally, a couple dozen students paraded in front of the White House. Many wore orange – the color that has come to symbolize the antigun violence movement – and hoisted signs such as “Make America Sane Again” and “Guns or Children: How is That Even a Question?”