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WASHINGTON \u2014 Summoned to action by student survivors of the Florida school shooting, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters rallied in the nation\u2019s capital and cities across America on Saturday to press for gun control in one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam era.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking,\u201d David Hogg, a survivor who has emerged as one of the student leaders of the movement, told the roaring crowd of demonstrators at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington.<\/p>\n
He warned: \u201cWe will get rid of these public servants who only care about the gun lobby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chanting \u201cVote them out!\u201d and bearing signs reading \u201cWe Are the Change,\u201d \u2018\u2019No More Silence\u201d and \u201cKeep NRA Money Out of Politics,\u201d the protesters packed Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House.<\/p>\n
Large rallies with crowds estimated in the tens of thousands in some cases also unfolded in such cities as Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Houston; Fort Worth, Texas; Minneapolis; and Parkland, Florida, the site of the Feb. 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead.<\/p>\n
Protesters denounced the National Rifle Association and its allies and complained that they are scared of getting shot in school and tired of inaction by grown-ups after one mass shooting after another.<\/p>\n
They called for such measures as a ban on high-capacity magazines and assault-type rifles like the one used by the Florida killer, tighter background checks and school security, and a raising of the age to buy guns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really tired of being afraid at school,\u201d said Maya McEntyre, a 15-year-old high school freshman from Northville, Michigan, who joined a march by thousands in Detroit. \u201cWhen I come to school, I don\u2019t want to have to look for the nearest exit.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI want to get to the problem before it gets to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Atlanta, Ben Stewart, a 17-year-old senior at Shiloh Hills Christian School in Kennesaw, Georgia, took part in a march in Atlanta to press for what he called \u201ccommon-sense gun laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have been dying since 1999 in Columbine and nothing has changed. People are still dying,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cIt could be prevented.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump was in Florida for the weekend. A motorcade took him to his West Palm Beach golf club in the morning. As of early afternoon, he had yet to weigh in on Twitter about the protests.<\/p>\n
The NRA went silent on Twitter in the morning, in contrast to its reaction to the nationwide school walkouts against gun violence March 14, when it tweeted a photo of an assault rifle and the message \u201cI\u2019ll control my own guns, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 30 gun-rights supporters staged a counter-demonstration in front of FBI headquarters in Washington, standing quietly with signs such as \u201cArmed Victims Live Longer\u201d and \u201cStop Violating Civil Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers of the gun-control rally in the nation\u2019s capital hoped their protest would match in numbers and spirit last year\u2019s women\u2019s march, which far exceeded predictions of 300,000 demonstrators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to fight for our dead friends,\u201d Delaney Tarr, another survivor of the Florida tragedy, declared from the stage. The crowd roared with approval as she laid down the students\u2019 central demand: a ban on \u201cweapons of war\u201d for all but warriors.<\/p>\n
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s 9-year-old granddaughter Yolanda Renee King gave a rousing speech at the Washington rally, drawing from the civil rights leader\u2019s most famous words.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a dream that enough is enough,\u201d she said. \u201cThat this should be a gun-free world. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Parkland, the police presence was heavy as more than 20,000 people filled a park near the school, chanting slogans such as \u201cEnough is enough\u201d and carrying signs that read \u201cWhy do your guns matter more than our lives?\u201d and \u201cOur ballots will stop bullets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gun violence was also fresh for some in the Washington crowd: Ayanne Johnson of Great Mills High in Maryland held a sign declaring, \u201cI March for Jaelynn,\u201d honoring Jaelynn Willey, who died Thursday two days after being shot by a classmate at the school. The classmate also died.<\/p>\n
Rallying outside the New Hampshire Statehouse in Concord, 17-year-old Leeza Richter said: \u201cOur government will do more to stop us from walking out than it will to stop a gunman from walking in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the bloodshed in Florida, students have tapped into a current of gun control sentiment that has been building for years \u2014 yet still faces a powerful foe in the NRA and its supporters.<\/p>\n
Organizers hope the passions of the crowds and the under-18 roster of speakers will translate into a tipping point starting with the midterm congressional elections this fall. In addition to pushing for tighter gun laws, the students have been working to register young people to vote.<\/p>\n
Polls indicate public opinion in the U.S. may be shifting on the issue.<\/p>\n
A new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 69 percent of Americans think gun laws in the U.S. should be tightened. That is up from 61 percent in 2016 and 55 percent in 2013.<\/p>\n
Overall, 90 percent of Democrats, 50 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of gun owners now favor stricter gun laws.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the poll found that nearly half of Americans do not expect elected officials to take action.<\/p>\n
Associated Press writers Terry Spencer in Parkland, Florida; Jacob Jordan in Atlanta; Ed White in Detroit; Ben Nadler in Atlanta; and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protesters call for closer scrutiny of gun sales, assault rifles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1615,150,3719],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-100871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-constitution","tag-firearms","tag-massacre"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100871"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=100871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}