WASHINGTON – After Uwalde, after Buffalo, after Parkland and Newtown and El Paso, and hundreds of other mass shootings over the past two decades, thousands of protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and cities across the country on Saturday to demonstrate violence against weapon.
With their signs, chants, and simple presence, they condemned the drumbeat of mass shootings in the United States and renewed calls – so far in vain – for federal law to limit the use of military-style weapons, which made many of them possible.
The protests, organized by March for Our Lives, were a repeat of student-sponsored demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands in 2018 after a 19-year-old gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 and injuring 17 others.
This time the demonstration followed a shooting last month that killed 10 blacks at a Buffalo supermarket and killed 19 students and two teachers at Rob Elementary School in Uwalde, Texas.
“No more,” David Hogg, co-founder of March for Our Lives and a survivor of the Parkland shooting, wrote on Twitter. “It’s time for Democrats, Republicans, gun and gun owners to come together” and start focusing on what they can agree on.
Saturday’s protests erupted in hundreds of cities across the country and in several parts of Europe. At the main protest site, the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital, survivors of mass shootings, teachers’ representatives, civil rights activists and elected officials addressed the crowd.
The Senate is bipartisanly negotiating legislation to curb mass shootings, but Republicans who have blocked such laws for years continue to argue that the killings are the result of other problems, such as mental illness or deficiencies in school security, rather than arms yourself. Senate talks are said to focus on those allegations, as well as past checks on gun purchases.
Here are some scenes from protests across the country.
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