March for Our Lives returns after shootings
WASHINGTON — Angered by the unrelenting toll from gun violence, tens of thousands of people are expected at rallies this weekend in the nation’s capital and around the United States demanding that Congress pass meaningful changes to gun laws.
The second March For Our Lives rally will take place Saturday in front of the Washington Monument, a successor to the 2018 march organized by student protesters after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
Now with recent shootings from Uvalde to Buffalo, N.Y., bringing gun control back into the national conversation, organizers of this weekend’s events say the time is right to renew their push for a national overhaul.
“Right now we are angry,” said Mariah Cooley, a March For Our Lives board member and a senior at Washington’s Howard University. “This will be a demonstration to show that us as Americans, we’re not stopping anytime soon until Congress does their jobs. And if not, we’ll be voting them out.”
About 50,000 participants are predicted to turn out in the District of Columbia, with rain in the forecast. That’s far less than the original march, which filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people. This time, organizers are focusing on holding smaller marches at an estimated 300 locations.
“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 D.C., it’s not just about senators.”
The protest comes at a time of renewed political activity on guns and a crucial moment for possible action in Congress.
The House has passed bills that would raise the age limit to buy semi-automatic weapons and establish federal “red flag” laws. But such initiatives have traditionally stalled or been heavily watered down in the Senate.
One of the group’s highestprofile activists, co-founder David Hogg, said in a tweet Friday that he believed “this time is different,” pointing to his opinion piece on Fox News.
He wrote that his group is not “anti-gun” and supports the Second Amendment, but wants measures with bipartisan support. “Let’s start there and find common ground to take action, because the next shooter is already planning his attack,” he said.