March for our Lives: Parkland student Emma Gonzalez ends Washington rally by telling crowd to 'fight for your lives' - as it happened
Hundreds of thousands gather at events across America and around the world
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Thirty-eight days after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, hundreds of thousands of students across the country have taken to to the streets in an anti-gun violence protest of unprecedented size.
The marches – which consists of a main event in Washington DC alongside sister protests in New York, Los Angeles and hundreds of communities across the country and around the world – is the culmination of weeks of planning by student survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting in which 17 people were killed on Valentine's Day.
The focal point was the March for Our Lives rally in Washington DC, but tens of thousands also turned out in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Minneapolis in demonstrations sparked by the survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day. Beyond America – where there were about 800 events – there were protests in London, Belfast, Geneva and a number of other cities across the globe.
The marches felt like the culmination of more than a month of political pressure led by the survivors of the massacre in which 17 people were killed – including 14 students – and more than a dozen others injured. There have been some successes in that time, with some gun control measures having been signed into law in Florida, but the main message was that this was the start of something, not the end.
Cameron Kasky, one of the students who lost classmates in the Parkland shooting, told the crowd in Washington: “Welcome to the revolution.”
“[This] is the springboard that my generation and all who stand with us will use to jump to a safer future,” he said of the call for change. He said that what the students want is action on gun violence, including a federal law banning the sale of assault weapons, a law prohibiting the sale of high-capacity magazines for ammunition and universal background checks for gun sales. “Don’t worry, we got this,” he added.
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In the weeks since the shooting, the Parkland students have re-energised the call for gun law reform and have rejected the mantra of the powerful gun rights lobby spearheaded by the National Rifle Association (NRA) – and a number of the politicians it supports with funds – that control is not needed.
Bringing signs reading “We Are the Change”, “No More Silence” and “Keep NRA Money Out Of Politics”, protesters packed Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House and cheered every speaker, including Parkland student Emma Gonzalez, the leader of the student organisers, who spent six minutes in silence to illustrate the time it took for the 17 to be killed. Tears streamed down her face as she did so.
The marches across the country attracted a diverse range of protesters, young and old, as well as a cross-section of society no matter race or gender identity. Lisa Valley, 59, had come from Grove City Pennsylvania to attend the Washington DC march and praised the student leaders that had organised the rally.
March for Our Lives – in pictures
Show all 13“The students have inspired me about something I’ve felt strongly about for a long time… Sensible gun control is a good thing. It’s not even something we should think twice about,” she said.
Sydney Nadler, 21, came from Ohio. She told The Independent she was one of the 50 students and staff her school, Ohio Wesleyan University, sponsored to attend the event in Washington.
“I find it disturbing how our elected officials are more concerned about receiving finances to be re-elected than those who are electing them.”
The last time an event attracted so much fanfare in Washington was in January 2017, when around 500,000 people gathered in the nation’s capital for the Women’s March. That march, which took place the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated, was largely viewed as a protest against the new President. Organisers expected a similar number on Saturday, while in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that the March of Our Lives rally in the city today drew 175,000 people.
March for Our Lives took place as Mr Trump spent time at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, almost 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away from Washington. While the White House put out a statement “applauding the many courageous young Americans” protesting across the country, Mr Trump himself was silent on Twitter about the rally as it was going on. His predecessor, Barack Obama, tweeted a message of support.
The students said they are aware change may have to come at the ballot box – on Saturday Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida commended the Parkland students and their supporters, but added that “many other Americans do not support a gun ban” and called any such move “an infringement on the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens”. During the afternoon there were a number of pro-gun rallies in places such as Salt Lake City in Utah, which were attended by thousands of people, but their numbers were small compared to the gun control demonstrations.
Another Parkland survivor, David Hogg, said such attitudes towards gun control may not last long. “We’re going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run not as politicians, but as Americans. Because this – this – is not cutting it,” he said, pointing at the white-domed Capitol. “We can and we will change the world!”
Wrapping up the Washington rally, Ms Gonzalez made their point clear: “Fight for your lives before it is someone else’s job.”
“It could have been my friend or my brother or my teachers, and that scares... me but it also angers me,” Sanjana said.
While Sanjana’s teachers have not openly discussed gun control reform in school, the students have and they know the issue will not be solved overnight. But for them marching today and getting their voices heard is more about “unity” among those “who are tired of feeling scared in their own schools”.
Students, families with children and other protesters raised placards reading "Protect kids not guns," "Never again," and "Enough is enough" Saturday outside the new embassy building in south London.
Amnesty International UK's director Kate Allen referred to the 1996 school killings at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, in which 16 students and a teacher were killed.
She said: "After our own school shooting at Dunblane, new gun ownership laws were introduced in Britain and that's exactly what's needed in the United States, where gun deaths are a national tragedy."
Plenty of signs and reasons to be out in the Philadelphia march.
One marcher in Washington DC, Sydney Nadler, 21, told The Independent she came all the way from Ohio to attend the March for Our Lives. She told The Independent she was one of the 50 students and staff from Ohio Wesleyan University.
“The inaction by our elected officials to do what’s right is upsetting,” Ms Nadler said. “I find it disturbing how our elected officials are more concerned about receiving finances to be reelected than those who are electing them.”
In New York, a stage for a rally ahead of the march sits on Central Park West as marchers begin gathering. Speakers periodically come on stage to remind marchers to register to vote to “vote out” politicians in New York and across the country who do not support gun safety laws
Jamie Motley, a marcher in New York. is 18 and attends the Manhattan School for Career Development in the East Village, New York. Jamie is a “budding activist,” his aunt Cindy Finch told The Independent.
Jamie also has autism. It makes hard for him to complete some basic tasks, like tying his shoes. But, Ms Finch said because he is 18 and has no criminal record, he can go into a store, “act relatively normal,” and legally buy an AR-15 in most states. That is why they are at the march.
The AR-15 assult rifle was the weapon used in the Parkland shooting.
The White House has issued a statement about the marches:
“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today. Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President’s, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS and STOP School Violence Acts, and signed them into law. Additionally, on Friday, the Department of Justice issued the rule to ban bump stocks following through on the President’s commitment to ban devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”
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