March for Our Lives draws hundreds calling for gun control to downtown Dallas

On a sweltering Saturday morning, about 400 folks gathered in downtown Dallas calling for options to gun violence.

Sparked by final month’s bloodbath at a Texas elementary college, some demonstrators carried messages in remembrance of victims of mass shootings. They chanted and held indicators as they made their method via town, and plenty of spoke out about modifications they needed to see.

“It’s vital that we make the most of our voice in issues which can be vital to us,” stated John Peavler, 48. “We have to not cower from tough points, we have to arise and make our voices heard.”

March for Our Lives, a youth-led group that advocates for gun management, held greater than 300 marches across the nation Saturday in response to current shootings, together with the one on Could 24 in Uvalde that left 19 elementary college college students and two academics lifeless.

Further North Texas marches came about in Fort Price, Frisco and Rockwall, with the flagship demonstration in Washington, D.C. — the place the primary rally of its sort was held in 2018 after the Parkland, Fla., college taking pictures that killed 17.

The Dallas occasion began with a march from Dealey Plaza to Dallas Metropolis Corridor, the place audio system included scholar organizers Naz Soysal and Karter Stanton and representatives from activist teams Gays Towards Weapons and Mothers Demand Motion, amongst others.

One organizer, 18-year-old James Thompson, stated the group was calling for quite a lot of gun-control measures, together with common background checks, assault weapon bans, a ready interval to buy a gun and extra funding in neighborhood companies, equivalent to after-school applications.

“Gun violence and poverty occurs in areas which have been left behind,” Thompson stated, “And we need to make it possible for our communities will not be left behind and are invested in in order that this violence doesn’t happen.”

Kathyrn Vargas, 30, of Mothers Demand Motion, stated the Uvalde taking pictures made issues private for folks in the identical method because the 2019 mass taking pictures at an El Paso Walmart — the occasion that prompted her to begin advocating for gun management.

“All of us have youngsters or we now have little siblings or one thing,” Vargas stated. “Everybody has a toddler of their life.”

Vargas and quite a few different attendees honored the Uvalde victims and their households via their messages, ribbons, images and indicators. One signal learn “The place is your wonderful braveness now? Thanks Mr. Reyes” — an ode to Arnulfo Reyes, a Robb Elementary College instructor, who was wounded within the taking pictures and misplaced 11 of his college students as police took 78 minutes to intervene and kill the gunman.

The Uvalde shooter legally purchased the weapons and ammunition he used simply days after his 18th birthday.

Soysal turned 18 in Could and stated she doesn’t perceive why Texas legal guidelines forestall somebody her age from renting a automotive or buying alcohol and cigarettes, however not a gun.

“The federal government says I’m not mentally prepared for these issues, so how am I mentally able to possess a weapon that’s sole objective is to kill,” she stated. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Regardless of repeated requires elevated gun management after mass shootings in El Paso, Santa Fe, Sutherland Springs and Plano, the Texas Legislature handed a number of legal guidelines in 2021 that enhanced gun rights, together with permitting Texans to hold a hid handgun and not using a allow.

Soysal stated she will solely consider two causes they’re “going backwards”: a tradition of “gun glorification,” and the actual fact quite a few Republican lawmakers, together with Gov. Greg Abbott, obtain contributions from the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation.

Soysal implied the shooters in Uvalde, Buffalo and different mass shootings didn’t act alone as a result of Republican lawmakers “are complicit with their lack of motion.”

Democrats and no less than two Republican lawmakers have known as for a particular session amid the renewed requires firearm restrictions, together with elevating the age to buy a gun to 21 and a “crimson flag” legislation that might preserve firearms out of the palms of individuals believed to be a hazard to themselves.

As a substitute, Abbott known as on the state legislature to kind particular committees to research areas he discovered vital to enhance on after Uvalde. He didn’t listing gun management, however famous “college security, psychological well being, social media, police coaching, firearm security and extra.”

Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who’s working to unseat Abbott in November, tweeted that the governor “known as THREE particular periods final 12 months alone. However he can’t be bothered to name one now to maintain our children from being killed.”

Some members of Saturday’s crowd in Dallas stated that whereas they supported Republicans previously, they’re disillusioned with the get together’s present priorities.

There have been no counterprotesters on the Dallas rally, however some confirmed as much as the march in Fort Price. In a video posted on-line, a lady could possibly be seen yelling at protesters that she got here to “defend her rights.”