WASHINGTON, DC — Thousands of people were
expected to demonstrate across the
US on Saturday for tighter firearms laws to
curb devastating gun violence plaguing the country.
اضافة اعلان
Two horrific shootings last month — one at a Texas
elementary school that killed 19 young children and two teachers, and another
at a New York supermarket that left 10 Black people dead — sparked the call for
the protests, which are planned at hundreds of locations.
But the problem of gun violence — which has killed
more than 19,300 people so far this year in the US, according to the
Gun Violence Archive — goes far beyond high-profile mass killings, with most of
those deaths due to suicide.
“After countless
mass shootings and instances of gun violence in our communities, it’s time to
take back to the streets,” March for Our Lives, which is organizing the
demonstrations, said on its website.
“Demonstrate to our elected officials that we demand
and deserve a nation free of gun violence,” it said.
March for Our Lives was founded by survivors of the
shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, who organized a rally that drew
hundreds of thousands of people to the nation’s capital in March 2018.
David Hogg, a founder and board member of the organization,
has appealed for Americans of all political stripes to take part in the
Saturday protests.
“Whoever you are, march with us. ... Gun owners, NRA
members,
Republicans,
Democrats, independents, and people from all backgrounds
are fed up and it is time we make Congress do something,” Hogg wrote in an
opinion piece for Fox News the day before.
“If we can agree that killing children is
unacceptable, then we need to either prevent people intent on killing from
getting their hands on the guns they use or stop their intent to kill in the
first place,” he said.
While frequent mass shootings spark widespread
outrage in the US, where a majority of people support tighter gun laws,
opposition from many Republican lawmakers has long been a hurdle to major
changes.
The Democrat-controlled
House of Representatives
passed a broad package of proposals this week that included raising the
purchasing age for most semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, but the party does
not have the requisite 60 votes to advance it in the Senate.
A cross-party group of senators has also been
working on a narrow collection of controls that could develop into the first
serious attempt at gun regulation reform in decades.
The package would boost funding for mental health
services and school security, narrowly expand background checks, and
incentivize states to institute so-called “red flag laws” that enable
authorities to confiscate weapons from individuals considered a threat.
But it does not include an assault weapons ban or
universal background checks, meaning it will fall short of the expectations of
President Joe Biden, progressive Democrats, and anti-gun violence activists.
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