Faces, feelings in Denver crowd »
Many among the thousands of people who attended Denver’s March for Our Lives event on Saturday used signs to convey a variety of stories and messages.
Here are a few:
Haylee Larue, 16, who participated in a national school walkout over gun violence at Thornton High School this month, attended Saturday’s march with her family. “We shouldn’t have to send our parents text messages in the morning saying I love you because we don’t know if we’ll make it home,” she said. “We shouldn’t be scared to go to school.”
Haylee’s younger sister, 4-yearold Sariah, brought a sign that read “I’m little and I’m mad.” The girls’ mother, Kelly, said their family came downtown from Commerce City because she is raising her children to have a voice.
The massacre in Parkland, Fla., was foremost in the mind of Qynn Schumer, who attended the Denver march and rally to honor Scott Beigel, a teacher who was among those killed at the high school Feb. 14 and whom Schumer called a dear friend. “He died a hero, and he shouldn’t have,” Schumer said. “He shouldn’t have been taken away with an AR-15.”
Julia Eiken, 18, registered to vote at Denver’s march and rally. She said gun reform will be a huge issue for her as she votes for the first time. “It’s so ridiculous I should have to live in fear as I further my education,” said the Chatfield High student.
Former teacher Mary Kaupas, 87, of Boulder, joined her granddaughter Brooke Stamper during Saturday’s protest. As a former teacher, Kaupas said she thinks arming teachers would jeopardize children’s safety. As a grandmother, she said, she’d like to see assault rifles banned. “My husband and son hunted,” Kaupus said. “We just don’t need guns of war. Hunting guns are fine, but not guns of war.”
Margaret Spring and her husband, Chris Baker, used some basketball terminology to express their feelings about guns. They wore shirts that collectively read, “Shoot free throws, not firearms.” Both support the idea of stricter gun ownership regulations as well as national gun-buyback program. “It should be just as hard to buy a gun as it is to buy a house,” Baker said.
Jane Templeton, of Denver, and several neighbors were representing grandparents who are concerned about gun violence in schools. “When we were in school, we practiced duck and cover because the atomic bombs were coming, but kids now have it much worse because they know what’s coming,” Templeton said.
Bill Selby, a former military weapons designer and minister who conducted the funeral for Columbine High School shooting victim Lauren Townsend, carried a sign that read, “Sorry, kids. We adults screwed up. You take it from here. We’re with you.” Selby added: “We did not design weapons of war for the home. There’s hope in these kids. Thank God.”
A group of friends who attend Standley Lake High School in Jefferson County brought signs expressing a range of emotions about gun violence in schools. “When teachers sign up to be teachers, they don’t sign up to shoot people who might hurt their students, they sign up to teach the next generation,” said 16-year-old