Protesters gathered across the United States today. Organizers hoped as many as 50,000 people arrived in Washington, but about 30,000 arrived in the capital.
12.6. 00: 50 • Updated June 12th. 08:11
Thousands of people protested against tightening gun laws across the United States on Saturday.
An estimated 30,000 people gathered in Washington, the country’s capital. The organizer of the protests, March For Our Lives, said up to 50,000 people had hoped to attend.
There have been several shootings in the United States during the month. 22 people died in Uvalde, Texas, when an armed person opened fire in elementary school. In Buffalo, New York, meanwhile, killed ten people in a shooting at a supermarket.
“Vote them out,” shouted the crowd
In Washington, one speaker after another called on senators to tighten gun laws.
– If our government is unable to prevent the killing and slaughter of 19 children in their own schools, it is time to replace board members, said founding member of March For Our Lives David Hogg referring to the Texas shooting.
– Vote them out! Hogg shouted to the crowd.
In 2018, Hogg survived a shooting that killed 17 students and staff in Parkland, Florida. Survivors founded March For Our Lives and staged the first demonstration for stricter gun laws in Washington in 2018.
More than 200,000 protesters arrived at the time. This time the crowd was clearly smaller, but the intention was to gather for smaller marches in about three hundred different places.
Joe Biden: I’m a little optimistic
Lost child in Parkalnd shooting Manuel Oliver asked that students not return to schools until the country’s leadership stopped avoiding an armed violence crisis.
– This time is different, because this is not about politics. This is about morality. Not from the right and the left but from the right and the wrong, and it doesn’t just mean thoughts and prayers. It means courage and action, he said Yolanda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s grandchild.
President of the United States Joe Biden showed its support for the protesters. He signaled to them to continue marching.
Biden also said he was slightly optimistic that legislation would begin to address gun violence.
Biden has called for stricter arms laws in the past.
Retired Lawyer: Arms Control is American
Thousands of protesters also gathered in Parkland on Saturday.
There Debra Hixon noted that it is far too easy for young men to walk into the store and buy guns. Her husband, high school physical education teacher Chris Hixon, died in a 2018 shooting.
– An empty bed and an empty seat at the table constantly remind you that he is gone. We hadn’t stopped making memories, sharing dreams, and living together. Gun violence took it from my family, Debra Hixon said.
Retired lawyer John Wuesthoff stated that arms control is not American.
– It is very American that there are reasonable regulations to save the lives of our children, he said.
Weapons laws evoke heated emotions in the United States. It was seen on Saturday in Washington as the young man jumped over obstacles and tried to break into the stage, but was stopped by law enforcement officers.
The incident caused panic for a short time, and people began to disintegrate.
Weapons laws share opinions
More than 19,300 people have died in the United States this year as a result of gun violence, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Suicides are also included in the chapter.
In the United States, gun laws divide opinions on the political field: Democrats are generally in favor of blackmailing gun laws, while Republicans are in favor of freer legislation.
Under federal law, blackmail will not proceed unless Democrats get a sufficient majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to bring about change.
The Democratic-majority House of Representatives has advanced this week with a package to tighten arms legislation, but it does not have the necessary majority support in the Senate.