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.”
Caroline Cregan, an elementary school teacher in New York, told The Independent she thinks of attending marches as “a duty to continue to show up [for an issue] that affects our students in such an important way”.
“I work at an elementary school so [gun control reform is] less something my students are aware of, but definitely something on my mind on an everyday basis”.
“We want to show the kids we’re proud of them,” Justine Ravi’s, a special education teacher at Castle Hill Middle School in the Bronx said
US Senator Marco Rubio said in a prepared statement that he supports demonstrators' rights to march at anti-gun rallies across the country, but called for activists to find common ground with opponents.
"While protests are a legitimate way of making a point, in our system of government, making a change requires finding common ground with those who hold opposing views," the Republican from Florida said.
In Washington DC, sca Kauga, 49, of Silver Spring brought her two daughters to the event.
“It was very inspiring,” she told The Independent. “We’re glad to be a part of this.”
As the Washington rally wrapped up, Emma Gonzalez closed out the event with the words:
"Fight for your lives before it is someone else’s job”.
↵Over on the West Coast, where it is nearly 1.15pm, marches in California are still going on.
Amy Schumer told crowds at the march in Los Angeles that she was speaking out despite doing so putting "literal targets on our backs".
"We stand together for your senselessly slain classmates and friends and say this has to stop," she said.
"You feel betrayed that you are living under the illusion of safety that your elders and country provide you and I stand with you to fight for the 17 fallen angels.
"It's these moments that define us. What we do in the struggle, what we do when things are hard and messy and involve doing what's right and not what is wrong, clearly wrong, like taking money from the NRA to uphold these laws outdated by hundreds of years. They allow for repeated killings of students."
Pro-gun activists held counter-protests at some cities across the western United States on Saturday, even as hundreds of thousands of people rallied at gun control events at the same time.
In Salt Lake City, Utah about 500 pro-gun marchers walked to the state Capitol building, advocating for fortified schools and more armed teachers. An hour later, about 6,000 anti-gun violence demonstrators marched the same route in a call for more gun regulations.
About two dozen gun-rights supporters staged a counter-protest in Phoenix, Arizona, holding flags and sometimes challenging opponents to debate gun issues.
They were far outnumbered, however — the Arizona Department of Public Safety estimates that 15,000 people attended the "March for Our Lives" gun-control rally at the state Capitol. Two of the student organizers of the event opened it by urging young people to register to vote and boot out officeholders who won't act.
Here is more on one of the best received speeches during the Washington event.
Miley Cyrus has been tweeting about her performance in Washington today.
Two separate rallies were held at the same time in Helena, Montana, by gun-control and gun-rights advocates.
At the gun-control rally, two teen sisters who helped organise the protest said they felt hope for the first time after the Parkland, Florida shooting survivors advocated for change.
"Finally, somebody was doing something about it, except it wasn't who you'd expect — it was us," Mariah Thomas, 17, said to cheers. "It was students my own age who decided they wanted to put an end to gun violence."
Across town outside the Montana Capitol, a smaller crowd of gun-rights advocates swore that no outsiders would dictate gun laws in Montana. One speaker, Montana State University student Joey Chester, drew boos when he referenced the other protest.
"If something went wrong there, the first people to show up are going to be people with guns," Mr Chester said.
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