Thousands of people rallied on the National Mall and across the United States on Saturday in a renewed push to demand gun control measures after repeated mass killings. The goal is to force Congress to act. “Enough is enough,” District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser said at the second March for Our Lives rally in her city.
“I speak as a mayor, as a mother, and I speak for millions of Americans and America’s mayors who are demanding that Congress do its job. And their job is to protect us, to protect our children from gun violence.”
In Washington, senators, who are seen as a major impediment to the legislation, were asked to act or be removed from office. “If our government can’t do anything to stop 19 kids from being killed in their own school, it’s time to change who’s in government,” said David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 shooting that killed 17 students. and staff from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Another Parkland survivor, X Gonzalez, delivered an impassioned plea to Congress for change. “They are murdering us,” he shouted, imploring Congress to “act on his age, not his shoe size.” He added Yolanda King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr.: “This time it’s different because it’s not about politics. It’s about morality. That means courage and action.”
In San Antonio, about 85 miles east of Uvalde, protesters chanted, “Hey, hey, the National Rifle Association has got to go.” One activist, Frank Ruiz, called for gun reform laws similar to those enacted in Florida after the Parkland shooting, which focused on raising the age to buy certain firearms and branding people with mental health issues.
The House of Representatives has passed bills to raise the age limit for purchasing semi-automatic weapons and establish federal “red flag” laws. A bipartisan group of senators had hoped to reach an agreement this week on a framework to address the issue and held talks on Friday, but no agreement was announced.
President Joe Biden, who was in California when the rally began in Washington, said his message to protesters was “keep marching,” adding that he is “slightly optimistic” about legislative negotiations to address gun violence. Biden recently delivered a speech to the nation in which he called for several steps, including raising the age limit for purchasing assault weapons.
In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, who has campaigned to curb violence in the nation’s largest city, has joined State Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing the National Rifle Association. “Nothing happens in this country until the young people stand up, not the politicians,” James said.
Hundreds of people joined the call for change and demonstrated in a park outside the courthouse in Portland, Maine. At one point, the National Rifle Association was asked, “How many children did you kill today?” John Wuesthoff, a retired attorney from Portland, said he waved an American flag during the rally as a reminder that gun control is “not un-American.” “It’s very American to have reasonable regulations to save our children’s lives,” he said.
Associated Press/OnCuba.
