‘Enough is enough’: Thousands in US demand new gun safety laws
Thousands of people rallied across the United States on Saturday in a renewed push for gun control measures after recent deadly mass shootings from Uvalde, Texas, to Buffalo, New York. “Enough is enough,” District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser told the second March for Our Lives rally in her city.
“I speak as a mayor, a mom, and I speak for millions of Americans and America’s mayors who are demanding that Congress do its job. And its job is to protect us, to protect our children from gun violence.”
Speaker after speaker in Washington called on senators, who are seen as a major impediment to legislation, to act or face being voted out of office, especially given the shock to the nation’s conscience after 19 children and two teachers were killed May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. “If our government can’t do anything to stop 19 kids from being killed and slaughtered in their own school, and decapitated, it’s time to change who is in government,” said David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 shooting that killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
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A co-founder of the March For Our Lives organisation that was created after that shooting and held its first rally in Washington not long afterward, Mr Hogg led the crowd in chants of “Vote them out.” Another Parkland survivor and group co-founder, X Gonzalez, delivered an impassioned, profanity-laced plea to Congress for change. “We are being murdered,” they screamed and implored Congress to “act your age, not your shoe size”. Added Yolanda King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr.: “This time is different because this isn’t about politics.
"It’s about morality. Not right and left, but right and wrong, and that doesn’t just mean thoughts and prayers. That means courage and action.” In San Antonio, about 85 miles east of Uvalde, marchers chanted “Hey, hey, ho, ho, the NRA has got to go.”
A man who said he helped to organize the rally, Frank Ruiz, called for gun reform laws similar to those enacted in Florida after the Parkland shooting that focused on raising the age for purchasing certain firearms and flagging those with mental health issues. The US House has passed bills to raise the age limit to buy semi-automatic weapons and establish federal “red flag” laws. A bipartisan group of senators had hoped to reach agreement this week on a framework for addressing the issue and held talks Friday, but no deal was announced.
President Joe Biden, who was in California when the Washington rally began, said his message to demonstrators was “keep marching” and added that he is “mildly optimistic” about legislative negotiations to address gun violence. Mr Biden recently delivered an impassioned address to the nation in which he called for several steps, including raising the age limit for buying assault-style weapons. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, who campaigned on reining in violence in the nation’s largest city, joined state Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing the National Rifle Association, in leading activists across the Brooklyn Bridge. Joining the call for change were hundreds of people who rallied in a park outside the courthouse in Portland, Maine, before they marched through the Old Port and gathered outside of City Hall. At one point, they chanted, “Hey, hey, hey, NRA. How many kids did you kill today”. Hundreds of protesters in Milwaukee marched from the county courthouse to the city’s Deer District, where last month 21 people were injured in shootings on the night of an NBA playoff game. Organiser Tatiana Washington, whose aunt was killed by gun violence in 2017, said this year’s march is particularly significant to Milwaukee residents. “A lot of us are still very heavily thinking about the mass shooting that occurred after the Bucks game,” Ms Washington said.
“We shouldn’t be scared to go watch our team in the playoffs and live in fear that we’re going to be shot at.”