WASHINGTON — Thousands of people streamed to the National Mall for the highest-profile of countrywide demonstrations Saturday marking a renewed push for gun control after recent mass shootings from Uvalde, Texas, to Buffalo, New York, that activists say should compel Congress to act.
Organizers hoped the second March for Our Lives rally would draw as many as 50,000 people to the Washington Monument. While that would be far less than the original 2018 march that filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people, they decided to focus this time on smaller marches at an estimated 300 locations.
Six of those marches were in the Carolinas with rallies Saturday in Weaverville and Asheville, North Carolina, as well as in Columbia and Greenville, South Carolina.
Rallies are planned for Sunday in Charlotte and Salisbury.
"I don't see it as a partisan issue; I see this as a parental issue,” said Alissa Redmond, a mother of two and organizer of the march in Salisbury. “I'm very concerned about the safety of my children when they go to public school and I feel that, having marched in 2018 with my young daughter, during that march for our lives, that it was a no-brainer. I was obviously going to help either organize or participate in anything that happened close to my home."
The first march was spurred by the Feb. 14, 2018, killings of 14 students and three staff members by a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That massacre sparked the creation of the youth-led March For Our Lives movement, which successfully pressured the Republican-dominated Florida state government to enact sweeping gun control reforms.
The Parkland students then took aim at gun laws in other states and nationally, launching March for Our Lives and holding the big rally in Washington on March 24, 2018.
The group did not match the Florida results at the national level, but has persisted in advocating for gun restrictions since then, as well as participating in voter registration drives.
Now, with another string of mass shootings bringing gun control back into the national conversation, organizers of this weekend’s events say the time is right to renew their push for a national overhaul.
“The second amendment is not absolute. It does not mean that you can take an AK-47 and you can kill 21 folks in Texas," said Charlotte city council member Malcolm Graham, who wants stronger gun laws in place. “It doesn’t mean you can go to a grocery store and gun down 12 African Americans… or go into a church and kill my sister Cynthia Graham Hurd who was at bible study.”
“When you look at other countries that have stricter gun laws the number of mass shootings is much lower and that speaks for itself,” said Eliana Hannon.
Hyatt Guns, store owner, Larry Hyatt said when it comes to restrictions lawmakers should focus on mental health.
“I think this mental health stuff will really help us as a firearm dealer because if we run that background check to know someone is turned down because they have mental health issues,” Hyatt said. “We don’t need to know why. We don’t need details, we just need a good yes or no from our background system.”
“I think when something of this magnitude happens, you hope that the people that haven't already given this the same level of thought would perhaps sit down and have a deeper conversation with themselves about what needs to change in our society,” Redmond said. “We are the only country on this planet with this magnitude of a problem when it relates to gun violence, specifically in schools."
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Charlotte’s march starts Sunday at 11 a.m. at First Ward Park on East Seventh Street.
Salisbury’s rally will begin at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Rowan County Government Administrative Offices. Redmond says they plan to march around the Bell Tower Green Park before reassembling in front of government offices for informal remarks from concerned community members.