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HUGELY BIGGER than Donald J. Trump's inauguration crowd!!

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: March 25, 2018, 11:38:06 am »


Satellite image of the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington D.C. — Photograph: ©2018 DigitalGlobe.
Satellite image of the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington D.C. — Photograph: ©2018 DigitalGlobe.
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If you aren't living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space! 

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« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2018, 03:44:52 pm »

looks like a dirty red tide of scum sucking pea brain lib tarts all having an emotional sissy fit bla bla bla me me me me oh thats you lol
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP
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« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2018, 07:31:39 pm »


Those students are going to target and turn on blow-torch on every scumbag American politician who has the American terrorist organisation, the NRA, in their pockets during the leadup to this year's mid-term elections. The filthy scum need to be outed and weeded out of America's federal Congress and Senate and replaced by politicians who will heed the more than 70% of Americans (according to recent polls) who support tougher federal gun control laws.

Just like the Vietnam War protest movement, these students are going to overwhelm the American political system and the filthy scumbags who do what the NRA says.

The National Rifle Association is a treasonous terrorist organisation and needs to be stomped on and made illegal.
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2018, 10:33:27 pm »


from The New York Times....

March for Our Lives Highlights: Students Protesting Guns
Say ‘Enough Is Enough’


Hundreds of thousands of protesters, outraged by a recent school shooting, took to the
streets in Washington and around the world, calling for action against gun violence.


By NEW YORK TIMES REPORTERS | 4:05PM EDT — Saturday, March 24, 2018

March for Our Lives rally participants in New York City walking through Columbus Circle on Saturday. — Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times.
March for Our Lives rally participants in New York City walking through Columbus Circle on Saturday. — Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times.

DEMONSTRATORS FLOODED STREETS across the globe in public protests on Saturday, calling for action against gun violence. Hundreds of thousands of marchers turned out, in the most ambitious show of force yet from a student-driven movement that emerged after the recent massacre at a South Florida high school.

At the main event in Washington, survivors of mass shootings, including the one in Florida, rallied a whooping crowd — “Welcome to the revolution,” said one of the student organizers — and spoke of communities that are disproportionately affected by gun violence. “It is normal to see flowers honoring the lives of black and brown youth that have lost their lives to a bullet,” Edna Chavez, 17, said of her South Los Angeles neighborhood.


  • In New York, marchers bundled in bright orange — the official color of a gun control advocacy group — charged toward Central Park. And in Parkland, Florida, less than a mile from where the shooting took place last month, one protester's eyes brimmed with tears, surrounded by the echoing chant, “Enough is enough!”

  • Small groups of counterprotesters supporting gun rights also marched in different cities. In Salt Lake City, demonstrators carried pistols and flags. One of their signs read: “What can we do to stop mass shootings? SHOOT BACK”. In Boston, opposing groups of protesters shouted at one another before the police intervened.


  • Planning for the events was spearheaded by a group of students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who have emerged as national anti-gun figures in the wake of the shooting that left 17 dead last month.

  • Sharp-tongued and defiant, the student leaders hoped to elevate gun control as a key issue during the upcoming mid-term elections, and to inspire their peers to register to vote en masse.

  • They were building on the success of a national school walkout this month, and gun control legislation in Florida that they helped to usher in. Their goal remains, as articulated online in the event's mission statement, to “demand that a comprehensive and effective bill be immediately brought before Congress to address these gun issues.”

  • The White House responded to the demonstrations in a statement. “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” it read. On Friday, the Justice Department proposed banning so-called bump stocks, but President Trump signed a spending bill that included only some background check and school safety measures.

  • The New York Times had journalists covering the marches in Washington; New York; Boston; Montpelier, Vermont.; Parkland, Florida; Dahlonega, Georgia; Chicago; Salt Lake City; Los Angeles; Seattle; Anchorage, Alaska; Rome; Berlin; and Tokyo. Follow them on Twitter.

  • Sign up for the Morning Briefing for news and a daily look at what you need to know to begin your day.

The student organizers want action in a mid-term year.

The student activists emphasized that they would soon have access to the ballot box as they hope to build support for candidates who support universal background checks and bans on assault-style weapons.

Large majorities of Americans say they support gun control measures like universal background checks. Yet when put directly to the people in a referendum in recent years, the results have been mixed. Here is a look at what polling and recent referendums reveal about the political challenges that face the student-led activists.

At street intersections in Washington on Saturday, voter registration volunteers waved clipboards over their heads, shouting, “It takes less than three minutes!” They wore neon yellow shirts that read, “Register to vote!”

“These Parkland students have already been able to make change that no one else could for decades,” said Carol Williams, a volunteer from West Chester, Pennsylvania.

In Parkland on Saturday, Sari Kaufman, a Stoneman Douglas sophomore, urged people to “turn this moment into a movement” that would push out of office any politician who took money from the National Rifle Association.

“They think we're all talk and no action,” she said to loud applause and cheers, and urged the crowd to prove politicians wrong by voting in huge numbers.

“Remember that policy change is not nearly as difficult as losing a loved one,” she said. “Don't just go out and vote: Get 17 other people to go out and vote.”

The crowd was particularly rousing in its appreciation of Casey Sherman, 17, a Douglas student and one of the Parkland rally organizers.

“My love for Parkland had taken on a whole new meaning,” she said. “After all this heartbreak, we have come back stronger than ever. Those 17 people did not die in vain. We will stop at nothing until we make real, lasting change.”


Jada Wright, 17, a student at Eastern Senior High School cries during the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C. on Saturday. — Photograph: Erin Schaff/The New York Times.
Jada Wright, 17, a student at Eastern Senior High School cries during the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C. on Saturday.
 — Photograph: Erin Schaff/The New York Times.


‘Welcome to the revolution’, one of the student organizers said in Washington.

At the rally in Washington, the first speaker was Cameron Kasky, 17, a junior at Stoneman Douglas who last month challenged Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican, to stop accepting donations from the National Rifle Association. Mr. Kasky called for universal background checks on gun sales and a ban on assault rifles.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down and stay silent: Wait your turn,” Mr. Kasky said. “Welcome to the revolution.”

Another speaker, Edna Chavez, 17, a high school senior in Los Angeles, said she had lost her brother to gun violence. “Ricardo was his name. Can you all say it with me?” she asked.

The crowd said his name over and over again, as Ms. Chavez smiled through tears.

Alex Wind, 17, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, spoke about the need for legislative change.

“To all the politicians out there, if you take money from the N.R.A., you have chosen death,” he said. “If you have not expressed to your constituents a public stance on this issue, you have chosen death. If you do not stand with us by saying we need to pass common sense gun legislation, you have chosen death. And none of the millions of people marching in this country today will stop until they see those against us out of office, because we choose life.”

David Hogg, 17, a senior at the high school and one of the most recognizable faces of the movement, said: “Who here is going to vote in the 2018 election? If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking.”

On Saturday, officials with Metro, the region's subway system, said more than 207,000 rides had been taken on the system by 1 p.m., about half of the number by that time during the women's march.

A team of crowd science researchers led by the professor G. Keith Still of Manchester Metropolitan University in England estimated that about 180,000 people attended Saturday's rally in Washington. They examined photographs, video and satellite imagery of the rally to estimate the crowd density in different areas of the demonstration. The number is less than half of the 470,000 that Mr. Still estimated had attended the women's march in Washington in 2017.


In New York, 150,000 people were marching, the mayor said.

In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said early in the afternoon on Twitter that an estimated 150,000 people were marching. “You have to know when a revolution is starting,” he said.

The musician Paul McCartney, speaking to CNN at the march, opened his jacket to show a T-shirt that read “We can end gun violence”.

“This is what we can do, so I'm here to do it,” Mr. McCartney said. “One of my best friends was killed in gun violence right around here, so it's important to me,” he added, referring to his Beatles bandmate John Lennon, who was shot and killed in December 1980 outside his apartment on the Upper West Side.


The March for Our Lives rally in New York City on Saturday. — Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times.
The March for Our Lives rally in New York City on Saturday. — Photograph: Todd Heisler/The New York Times.

As the crowd thickened before a rally in front of the Trump International Hotel and Tower near Columbus Circle, Mary Ann Jacobs, 55, of Sandy Hook, Connecticuit, milled in the crowd with her husband.

Ms. Jacobs was a library clerk during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She barricaded herself in the school's library, “in a closet hidden behind file cabinets” along with 18 fourth graders.

“In the months after the shooting it took 100 percent of my personal focus to get up and go to work every day to take care of my surviving students,” she said.


Opponents of gun control staged their own smaller rallies in Boston and Salt Lake City.

Tensions over guns seemed to converge in Salt Lake City, where a gun rights march kicked off just minutes before a gun control march.

The gun rights rally drew hundreds of people, many carrying signs — “AR-15s EMPOWER the people”, one said.

Brandon McKee was one of the many people with pistols on their hips. His daughter Kendall, 11, held a sign: “Criminals love gun control”.

Mr. McKee said of the Washington marchers: “I believe it's their goal to unarm America, and that's why we're here today. We're not going to stand idly by and let them tell us what we can and cannot do.”

As the gun rights advocates set off toward the Capitol, some began to heckle a gun control advocate, Linda Peer, 67, who had infiltrated the march line.

“She's not a true American!” one man yelled. “Shame on you!” the group chanted at her.


Demonstrators at a gun rights rally in Salt Lake City on Saturday. It was one of several such counter-demonstrations across the country as hundreds of thousands marched in support of gun control. — Kim Raff/The New York Times.
Demonstrators at a gun rights rally in Salt Lake City on Saturday. It was one of several such counter-demonstrations across the country as
hundreds of thousands marched in support of gun control. — Kim Raff/The New York Times.


In Boston, a clutch of Second Amendment supporters gathered in front of the Statehouse with signs that said, “Come and take it”.

“We believe in the Second Amendment,” said Paul Allen, 62, a retired construction worker who lives in Salisbury, Massachusetts. “You people will interpret it the way you want and we'll interpret it for what it is — that law-abiding citizens who are true patriots have the right to bear arms.”

Mr. Allen described supporters of gun control as “ignorant sheep who are being spoon-fed by liberal teachers.”

“They haven't read the Constitution and they don’t know what it means,” he said.

Gun rights organizations were mostly quiet about the demonstrations on Saturday. A spokesman for the N.R.A. did not answer several emails requesting comment.

On the eve of the march, Colion Noir, a host on NRATV, an online video channel produced by the gun group, lashed out at the Parkland students, saying that “no one would know your names” if someone with a weapon had stopped the gunman at their school.

“These kids ought to be marching against their own hypocritical belief structures,” he said in the video, adding, “The only reason we've ever heard of them is because the guns didn't come soon enough.”


Demonstrators gathered in gun-friendly states.

In places where gun control is less popular, demonstrators pooled together, trying to show that support for their cause extends beyond large, predominantly liberal cities.

In Vermont, a rural state with a rich hunting culture and some of the nation's weakest gun laws, marchers gathered at the Capitol in Montpelier. Organizers hoped that thousands would turn out by the end of the day — an ambitious goal in a city of 7,500 people.

“I hope the national march is going to be impactful, but at least we know state by state that we can make change,” said Madison Knoop, a college freshman who organized the rally.

In Dahlonega, Georgia, several hundred people gathered outside a museum, a surprising show of strength for gun control in an overwhelmingly conservative region.

“We're going to be the generation that takes down the gun lobby,” Marisa Pyle, 20, said through a megaphone.

Ms. Pyle, a student at the University of Georgia and an organizer of Saturday's rally in Lumpkin County, challenged critics of the demonstrations across the country.

“I'm starting to think they just want to shut us up because they're scared of what we have to say,” Ms. Pyle said.

Young people were scattered in a crowd dominated by people in middle age and older. There were few signs of counter-protesters. But as Ms. Pyle led a roll call of the Stoneman Douglas victims, a man in a passing vehicle yelled: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”


Elsa Hoppenworth, a 16-year-old junior at West Anchorage High School, in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday. — Photograph: Ash Adams/The New York Times.
Elsa Hoppenworth, a 16-year-old junior at West Anchorage High School, in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday. — Photograph: Ash Adams/The New York Times.

In Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, marchers gathered in weather that peaked above freezing around noon.

Alaska has not seen a school shooting in two decades, but it has the highest rates of both gun-related deaths and suicides in the nation.

High schoolers turned out in jean jackets and hoodies, and shoveled snow to clear paths for one another in the 24-degree weather.

“Do you know how it feels to have the principal pretend over the intercom that the shooter is walking your way?” Elsa Hoppenworth, a 16-year-old junior at West Anchorage High School, asked a cheering crowd. “Those who do not contribute to change contribute to our death.”

Melanie Anderson, a 44-year-old middle school teacher, held up a sign that said “teacher, not sharp shooter.”

Keenly aware that Alaska is a pro-gun state, the students who marched and made speeches were careful to make clear that they were seeking modest reinforcements on existing gun laws, rather than all-out bans.


The message resonated for Chicago residents all too familiar with gun violence.

Thousands of demonstrators came together at Chicago's Union Park, where speaker after speaker rattled off grim statistics about the city's endemic violence.

“Chicago has been plagued with gun violence way before the Parkland shooting,” said Juan Reyes, a high school student. “Suddenly, people are talking about students not feeling safe in schools. But in reality, students in our city's South and West Sides have never felt safe.”

Speaking at the rally in Washington, Trevon Bosley, a 19-year-old Chicago resident whose older brother Terrell died of a gunshot wound in 2006, said, “We deserve the right to have a life without fear of being gunned down.”

Mya Middleton, 16, also traveled to speak in Washington, where she recalled an encounter with an armed man who was stealing from a store when she was a high school freshman.

“He pulls out this silver pistol and points it in my face and said these words that to this day haunt me and give me nightmares. He said, ‘If you say anything, I will find you’. And yet I'm still saying something today,” she said, to loud cheers.


Americans in Tokyo, Rome, Madrid and Berlin showed support.

On Saturday in Tokyo, where guns are highly restricted and shootings are rare, dozens of protesters gathered with signs bearing the names of people who have been killed by gun violence. Participants, many of them American, took turns reading poems or sharing memories of family members or friends killed in shootings.

“I think it is important not just to call for changes to our gun laws, not just to debate the subtleties of the Second Amendment, but to remember that it is people who have died because of our gun laws,” said Linda Gould, an American in Japan who organized the vigil.

And in Nagoya, Japan, Mieko Hattori, the mother of Yoshihiro Hattori, a Japanese exchange student who was shot and killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the early 1990s, said earlier in the week, “I just wanted to convey our message: We support you from Japan.”


Protesters in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday. — Photograph: Danny Casey/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia-EFE/Shutterstock.
Protesters in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday. — Photograph: Danny Casey/European Pressphoto Agency/Agencia-EFE/Shutterstock.

In Rome on Saturday, demonstrators at the American Embassy chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, the N.R.A. has got to go” and waved signs that read, “A Gun Is Not Fun” and “Am I Next?” The speakers at the rally included local students as well as Valentina and Gabriela Zuniga, a freshman and junior at Stoneman Douglas, who were on spring break.

“We knew there were rallies all over the world, and we looked for one in Rome,” said Gabriela, 16, adding that her life had changed drastically since the shooting. “You go into class and see empty desks. It's different for everyone now.”

Near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, 150 to 200 people, most of them Americans, held signs saying “bullets aren't school supplies” and “Waffeln statt Waffen” (Waffles Instead of Weapons).

Dylan von Felbert, 16, an 11th grader at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, said, “Our generation can be very apathetic — myself included — so I think it's important to support those things you really believe in.”

In Madrid, a small crowd — almost all of them Americans — braved a cold Saturday to gather in front of the American embassy. An American student read out a list of all the American school shootings since the Columbine massacre.

Fiona Maharg Bravo attended with her 13-year-old daughter, Elena. Ms. Maharg Bravo grew up in Chicago but has lived in Madrid for more than 10 years.

“It's perhaps hard for people here to relate to what unfortunately is a uniquely American issue,” she said.


__________________________________________________________________________

Reporting was contributed by Annie Correal, Caitlin Dickerson, Jacey Fortin and Jonathan Wolfe from New York; Emily Baumgaertner, Emily Cochrane, Patricia Mazzei, Sabrina Tavernise and Michael D. Shear from Washington D.C.; Nick Madigan from Parkland, Florida; Julie Turkewitz from Salt Lake City and Denver; Mitch Smith from Chicago; Katharine Q. Seelye from Boston; Jess Bidgood from Montpelier, Vermont; Alan Blinder from Dahlonega, Georgia; Jose A. Del Real from Los Angeles; Jill Burke from Anchorage, Alaska; Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome; Christopher Schuetze from Berlin; Raphael Minder from Madrid; and Hisako Ueno from Tokyo.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: A 360-Degree View of the March for Our Lives Protest

 • VIDEO: His Brother Was Shot in Chicago. He's Marching With Students From Parkland.

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Photos From the ‘March for Our Lives’ Protests Around the World

 • Students Lead Huge Rallies for Gun Control Across the U.S.

 • At Rallies, Students With a Different View of Gun Violence: As Urban Reality

 • For Parkland Students, a Surreal Journey From ‘Normal’ to a Worldwide March

 • At Rallies, Students With a Different View of Gun Violence: As Urban Reality

 • After the March, Follow This Gun Reform Battle Plan

 • Stop Shielding Gun Makers

 • Demonstrators Who Brought Guns and an Opposing Message: ‘Shoot Back’

 • ‘Something About Parkland Has Been Different’: Survivors From 20 Years of Mass Shootings Speak

 • NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL:

 • National School Walkout: Thousands Protest Against Gun Violence Across the U.S.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/us/march-for-our-lives.html
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2018, 10:33:52 pm »


from the Chicago Tribune....

Young activists rally for gun reform at March for Our Lives
Chicago march in Union Park


Thousands of students from across the Midwest marched Saturday in solidarity with students
from Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed in February.


By VIKKI ORTIZ HEALY and ESE OLUMHENSE | 6:30PM CDT — Saturday, March 24, 2018

Thousands of people gathered on March 24, 2018, in Union Park for March for Our Lives Chicago to protest gun violence and push for gun control reform. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
Thousands of people gathered on March 24, 2018, in Union Park for March for Our Lives Chicago to protest gun violence and push for gun control reform.
 — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.


PUMPING THEIR FISTS and chanting “student power”, thousands of young activists swarmed Union Park on Saturday, joining a nationwide cry for gun reform while using the spotlight to also demand solutions for everyday violence on Chicago's streets.

“I don't have anything to lose — not a paycheck, not an endorsement or a fancy beach house,” said Caitlyn Smith, a 12-year-old Chicago Heights girl who was chosen by her peers to address a March for Our Lives Chicago crowd so large it spilled outside the park boundaries and blocked traffic nearby.

Smith described how she became determined to end Chicago violence after her older brother was shot in the head outside her family's former Englewood home seven years ago. The crowd erupted into cheers when the seventh-grader warned politicians that their days would be numbered if they refused to make changes in gun legislation.

“I think it's time that we make this right, and you start to fear me,” she said.

March for Our Lives Chicago, organized by a group of about 20 high school and college students from the city and suburbs, came to life as hundreds of thousands of young people across the country rallied for changes in gun laws. The movement was originated by survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who, days after the February 14 massacre in which 17 people were killed, announced plans for a national March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C.

In addition to Chicago, sister marches were held in other major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles and New York City. Several Chicago suburbs held their own rallies, including Elgin, Downers Grove and Vernon Hills.

At Union Park, activists came from both bullet-riddled city neighborhoods and off packed trains from the suburbs. They were high school students, adults who wanted to support them and people who held up photos of loved ones killed by gunfire. Carrying posters that read “Good Kids, Mad City”, “2020 voter” and “Enough is enough”, the crowd watched a lineup of spoken word artists, dancers and emotional speakers — all younger than 21 — on a stage flanked by giant video screens.

Danielle Bass was one of about 80 alumni of Marjory Stoneman Douglas at the Union Park event on Saturday. The group, which came together after the Parkland shooting, has organized fundraisers and events to engage the community in its anti-violence campaign.

But here in Chicago, where gun violence is unrelenting, the campaign is additionally important, Bass said.

“It's that much more important that we're here today,” said Bass, who graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1996.


People gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
People gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

People gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
People gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

People gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
People gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

People march in the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
People march in the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

Jessica Janicki, of Chicago, said she felt compelled to attend Saturday's march as a survivor of a mass shooting with an assault weapon. In May 2003, Janicki was one of almost 100 people trapped at Case Western Reserve University in a tense, hourslong hostage situation with a disgruntled former student at the Cleveland school, she said.

Janicki, who worked at the university and was pregnant at the time, is still haunted by the trauma of having to drop to the ground on her stomach to dodge flying bullets.

“It's hard. I've had PTSD, I've done a lot of therapy…. You feel a sense of understanding for suffering.”

Dozens of Chicago-area pediatricians, nurses, medical students and pharmacists wearing white lab coats were also at the march. The group, composed of staffers from the Advocate, Loyola, UIC, Lurie Children's Hospital and Rush medical systems, echoed a plea also addressed by many of the event's speakers: that violence must be addressed with more than legislation, especially in Chicago. It requires investing in trauma centers, mental health resources, schools and other support systems.

“Gun violence in America is a public health crisis. It's an epidemic,” said Deanna Behrens, a pediatrician who works in the pediatric intensive care unit at Advocate Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn.

Tommy Malouf, a suburban art teacher, attended the march carrying a piece of cardboard with his message scrawled in black marker: “Teacher who thinks teachers having guns is a bad idea.”

“It seems like a totally ridiculous thing that that proposal is even an option on the table,” the ninth-grade teacher said. “We're trying to teach kids to be functional and giving citizens. To be armed feels like a total contradiction of that idea.”


Ashley Burns, from left, her daughter Kennedy Burns, 14, and Raegin McElwee, 14, all of Charleston, Illinois, gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
Ashley Burns, from left, her daughter Kennedy Burns, 14, and Raegin McElwee, 14, all of Charleston, Illinois, gather at Union Park for the March for Our Lives
protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.


Chicago-area high school students lead people during the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
Chicago-area high school students lead people during the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

Kathleen Wright, left, Sofi Penglase, center, and Erika Grinius, right, listen to student speakers at Union Park before the March for Our Lives protest on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
Kathleen Wright, left, Sofi Penglase, center, and Erika Grinius, right, listen to student speakers at Union Park before the March for Our Lives protest
on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.


People pose for a photographer after participating in the March for Our Lives protest at Union Park on March 24, 2018, in Chicago. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
People pose for a photographer after participating in the March for Our Lives protest at Union Park on March 24, 2018, in Chicago.
 — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.


A heavy presence of Chicago police officers both on foot and bikes guided pedestrians and traffic for many blocks surrounding the park. Entrepreneurs and other activists took advantage of the crowds, selling souvenir merchandise and promoting other political causes. There were no arrests related to the march, according to a Chicago Police Department spokesman.

Crowds surrounding the park were so thick that when it came time for demonstrators to march along Washington Avenue and back up Lake Street in the West Loop, a line of volunteers had to clear the streets one block at a time in order to allow them a path. The sight brought a proud smile to the face of Isabel Paredes, 17-year-old senior at Plainfield South High School and one of the March for Our Lives Chicago organizers who had been planning the event for weeks.

“It felt surreal, and now it's here and it's huge!” said a beaming Paredes, who, along with other organizers, led the massive crowds down the street.

To organize the march, teens introduced themselves to each other on Facebook and Twitter, met in church basements and libraries, applied for city permits in between AP Spanish classes and math tests, and raised more money than they knew how to spend.

The young activists were introduced to other local anti-violence groups by representatives from Women's March Chicago, which offered march planners assistance, from help moderating meetings to providing contacts.

Everytown for Gun Violence, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending gun violence, provided structural support for the event, including a $5,000 grant for operational expenses and several staff members stationed to Chicago specifically to assist the teens to obtain proper permits and contractors. The organization has given $2.5 million in grants to more than 500 organizers planning marches across the country.

After the event, which lasted nearly three hours, Emerson Toomey, a 17-year-old senior at Lane Tech High School and one of March for Our Lives' organizers, said she and other planners had no intention of resting after the massive turnout. The young activists are planning to form a coalition of youth anti-violence groups in Chicago, where they will continue to advocate for change.

“If you just do the march and you don't do anything after that, you don't accomplish anything,” said Toomey. “We just want to keep the movement going.”


People gather in Union Park before the March for Our Lives protest in Chicago on March 24, 2018. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
People gather in Union Park before the March for Our Lives protest in Chicago on March 24, 2018. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

Thousands of people march outside Union Park during the March for Our Lives rally in Chicago on March 24, 2018. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
Thousands of people march outside Union Park during the March for Our Lives rally in Chicago on March 24, 2018. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.

A grim reaper effigy is carried as thousands of people gather in Union Park for the March for Our Lives rally in Chicago on March 24, 2018. — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.
A grim reaper effigy is carried as thousands of people gather in Union Park for the March for Our Lives rally in Chicago on March 24, 2018.
 — Photograph: Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune.


__________________________________________________________________________

Chicago Tribune's Kim Janssen contributed.

• Vikki Ortiz Healy is a general assignment Metro reporter and Health & Family columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She specializes in human interest stories about family trends, special needs and remarkable people in everyday settings. She joined the Chicago Tribune in 2007 after working as a reporter at The Seattle Times, The Washington Post and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. At the Milwaukee paper, she wrote a weekly column about single life and dating. Proving that life just keeps moving along, today her columns at the Chicago Tribune follow her parenting adventures with her husband, Shawn, their children and a dog.

• Ese Olumhense is a multimedia journalist from New York who moved to Chicago to report for the Chicago Tribune. She is also a special correspondant for several other news organisations. Ese was a 2016-2017 Ida B. Wells Fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. She is a graduate of Columbia University's School of Journalism.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Hundreds of thousands march for gun control across the the nation: ‘You can hear the people in power shaking’

 • Southland marchers to lawmakers: ‘We cannot go to school in fear’

 • Marchers in Oswego: ‘The young people are giving me hope’

 • Marchers in Elgin: ‘No more silence, stop the violence’

 • Competing demonstrations meet in Valparaiso


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« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2018, 10:34:53 pm »


from The Washington Post....

‘Never again!’ Students demand action against gun violence in nation's capital.

‘Welcome to the revolution’: Young leaders demand action against gun violence.

By PETER JAMISON, JOE HEIM, LORI ARATANI and MARISSA J. LANG | 7:00PM EDT — Saturday, March 24, 2018

Satellite image of the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington D.C. — Photograph: ©2018 DigitalGlobe.
Satellite image of the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington D.C. — Photograph: ©2018 DigitalGlobe.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DEMONSTRATORS gathered in the nation's capital and cities across the country Saturday to demand action against gun violence, vividly displaying the strength of the political movement led by survivors of a school massacre in Parkland, Florida.

Organized by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 last month, the March for Our Lives showcased impassioned teens calling on Congress to enact stricter gun-control laws to end the nation's two-decade stretch of campus shootings.

Hundreds of “sibling protests” took place across the world, from New York City — where demonstrators spread across 20 blocks — to Jonesboro, Arkansas, a small city marking the 20th anniversary of a middle-school shooting that left four students and a teacher dead. Gun-rights advocates mounted counterprotests in Salt Lake City, Boise and Valparaiso, Ind., where one sign read “All Amendments Matter”.

Although the D.C. march was funded by Oprah Winfrey, George and Amal Clooney, and other celebrities, Stoneman Douglas High students have been its faces. Their unequivocal message to legislators: Ignoring the toll of school shootings and everyday gun violence will no longer be tolerated.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn: Welcome to the revolution,” Cameron Kasky, a Stoneman Douglas student, said to a crowd that packed at least 10 blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue. “Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware. The voters are coming.”

The main march in Washington was a heady mix of political activism, famous entertainers and the undisguised emotion of teenagers confronting the loss of friends and loved ones in a national spotlight.

Sam Fuentes, a senior shot in the leg at Stoneman Douglas, threw up on stage while delivering her speech to a national television audience. She recovered and led the crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for her slain classmate, Nicholas Dworet, who would have turned 18 on Saturday.

Emma González, 18, took the stage in a drab olive coat and torn jeans, speaking of the “long, tearful, chaotic hours in scorching afternoon sun” as students waited outside Stoneman Douglas High on the day of the shooting.

With a flinty stare, tears streaming down her face, González stood silent on the rally's main stage for nearly four minutes — evoking the time it took Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz to carry out his attack. The crowd began chanting, “Never again.”

The moment was widely shared on social media. “Fight for your lives before it's someone else’s job,” González said before she left the stage.

The march emphasized not just the highly publicized mass shootings in suburban, white schools, but also the far more common shootings that leave one or two young people dead and often affect predominantly black and Hispanic students in poor neighborhoods.

Zion Kelly, a senior at Thurgood Marshall Academy in Southeast Washington, spoke about his twin brother, Zaire, who was shot and killed by a robber in September. Choking back tears before a rapt crowd, Kelly described the close bond they had shared.

“From the time we were born, we shared everything. I spent time with him every day because we went to the same schools, shared the same friends, and we even shared the same room,” he said. “I'm here to represent the hundreds of thousands of students who live every day in constant paranoia and fear on their way to and from school.”


Marchers converge on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. — Photograph: Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post.
Marchers converge on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. — Photograph: Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post.

People gather near the front of the stage hours before the start of the March for Our Lives rally in the nation's capital, Washington D.C. — Photograph: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post.
People gather near the front of the stage hours before the start of the March for Our Lives rally in the nation's capital, Washington D.C.
 — Photograph: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post.


The march drew a huge crowd, though there were no police estimates of its size. One indication: Metro officials reported there had been about 334,000 trips on the system by 4 p.m. on Saturday, compared to 368,000 trips by the same time on the day of President Trump's inauguration. The Women's March last year generated 597,000 trips by the same time of day.

Because many of the demonstrators were children, authorities in the nation's capital said they took extra security precautions. By day's end, police had reported no violent altercations or other problems, despite a small contingent of counterprotesters decrying efforts to toughen gun laws.

“To be honest, I'm scared to march,” Stoneman Douglas senior Carly Novell said in a Saturday morning tweet, citing the risk that a shooter might terrorize those gathered to protest in Washington. “This is a march against gun violence, and I am scared there will be gun violence on the march. This is just my mind-set living in this country now, but this is why we need to march.”

The march offered a window on a generation that has come of age after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, which left 13 dead and is considered a milestone in the evolution of modern school shootings.

Nearly 200 people have died from gunfire at school since 1999, and more than 187,000 students attending at least 193 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus during school hours, according to a Washington Post analysis. The analysis found that Hispanic students are nearly twice as likely as white students to experience gun violence at school, and black students three times as likely.

The most recent shooting took place on Tuesday at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland, where 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey was killed by her 17-year-old former boyfriend, who also died. About 100 Great Mills students attended the march, which drew people from around the country.

Callie Stone, 18, traveled to Washington from Raleigh, North Carolina.

“We've grown up knowing this could happen to us,” said Stone, 18, walking down Pennsylvania Avenue before the march wearing a denim jacket emblazoned with “Nasty Woman”, a term President Trump used to insult Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election and that progressive women adopted as a moniker.

With Stone was her mother, whom Stone had told the previous day that she wasn't sure she wanted to raise children in a world where students fear going to school. “But I said, ‘Look at you, at your generation — you all are bringing us hope’,” said Kelly Stone, 54.

One couple at the rally, Rebekah and Chris Sullivan, described how their 4-year-old son already performs “active shooter” drills with his class, sitting quietly as his teacher rattles a locked door from the outside.

Jordin Torres, a junior at Howard High School in Ellicott City, Maryland, said she helps her instructors check that the blackout paper they're supposed to draw over classroom windows if a shooter attacks is untorn.

Torres carried a sign: “I have a dream that one day I won't be scared to go to school.”

Other signs read, “It happened at my school”, “Enough is enough!” and “I survived. My daughter didn't”.


Two protesters hold aloft a sign while the crowd gathers for the rally. — Photograph: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post.
Two protesters hold aloft a sign while the crowd gathers for the rally. — Photograph: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post.

Police stop the crowd on Sixth Street, right, from joining another crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue. — Photograph: Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post.
Police stop the crowd on Sixth Street, right, from joining another crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue. — Photograph: Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post.

In Boston, where a sister rally was underway, a group of about 25 counterprotesters gathered in front of the gold-domed Massachusetts statehouse to decry calls for tougher gun laws.

“After a tragedy like this one, everyone looks past the motives of the shooter and immediately focuses on guns,” said Robert Johnson, 21, of New York. “If you run over someone with a car, they don't blame the car. But if someone is shot, they immediately blame the guns.”

As they have spoken out in the wake of the Parkland shooting, Stoneman Douglas students have endured frequent attacks from opponents of gun control, with some even falsely suggesting they were actors paid by liberal activists.

Houston lawyer and gun-rights activist Collins Iyare Idehen Jr., who uses the pseudonym Colion Noir as a host on NRATV, took to the airwaves ahead of the march to say the students were “getting ready to use your First Amendment to attack everyone else's Second Amendment” and that “no one would know your names” if the shooting had not occurred.

The White House issued a statement on Saturday praising the marchers, despite their calls for tougher gun-control measures than President Trump supports.

“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in the statement, in which she added that “keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President's.”

The president himself was in Florida at Trump International Golf Club, about 35 miles from Parkland. The spending bill he signed on Friday includes a provision to tighten the nation's background-check system and may slightly open the door to restoring federal funding for gun research.

The Parkland students have already had an impact on the debate.

Lawmakers in Florida, a state long renowned as a laboratory for gun deregulation measures, passed its first significant gun-control legislation in 20 years this month in response to pressure from the Stoneman Douglas survivors.

They will stage another nationwide student walkout on April 20, the anniversary of Columbine, said David Hogg, one of the movement's leaders. And they are planning future marches on every state capitol.

It remains unclear whether they can shame Congress into passing new restrictions on guns. Many expected action after the killing of 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. But although President Barack Obama wept on television and convened a task force to craft stricter gun controls, nothing happened.

James Barden, 17, was in Washington on Saturday, carrying a photo of his 6-year-old brother, Daniel, who was killed at Sandy Hook. Barden and his family have toiled for five years advocating for stricter gun-control laws.

He said he was heartened by the turnout on Saturday. “If this doesn't do anything,” he said, “I don't know.” Asked how he felt about the demonstration, he replied, “Hopeful.”


A huge crowd of people march along Pennsylvania Avenue. — Photograph: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post.
A huge crowd of people march along Pennsylvania Avenue. — Photograph: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post.

__________________________________________________________________________

Moriah Balingit, Kayla Epstein, Mary Hadar, Luz Lazo, Erin Logan, Justin William Moyer, Antonio Olivo, Dana Priest, Katie Shaver, Rachel Siegel, Ellie Silverman, Kelyn Soong, Shira Stein, Patricia Sullivan and Julie Zauzmer contributed to this report.

• Peter Jamison writes about politics and government in the District of Columbia. Before joining The Washington Post in 2016, he worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Tampa Bay Times.

• Joe Heim has been with The Washington Post as an editor and reporter since 1999. He covers social issues, schools, protests and the occasional forest fire. He also writes Just Asking, a weekly Q&A column in The Washington Post's Sunday magazine. Heim was born in Morocco and lived in Kenya and Haiti before moving to the Philadelphia suburbs in the sixth grade. He is a graduate of Villanova University and the University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

• Lori Aratani writes about transportation issues for The Washington Post. Her beat includes airlines and airports and the agencies that oversee them. She also writes about innovation in the transportation sector and how new technology is changing the way people get to where they're going. She grew up in California and graduated from Boston University, where she learned the real meaning of cold weather.

• Marissa J. Lang is a local reporter for The Washington Post covering breaking news, features and hard-to-find stories in the D.C. metro area that reflect the personality and people of the region. Lang came to the The Post in 2018 from the San Francisco Chronicle, where she covered the impact of technology and tech companies on the Bay Area — its people, communities and culture. Lang was among the first reporters to write about Twitter's suspension of questionable user accounts, Russian bots and their role in the 2016 presidential election, the rise of fake news and discrimination at some of Silicon Valley's most recognizable companies. Lang played an integral role in the S.F. Chronicle's coverage of the 2016 Wine Country wildfires, which won the Scripps-Howard award for breaking news that year. In 2016, she won a first-place award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for her six-month investigation into the plight of homeless farm workers. Previously, Lang covered City Hall for the Sacramento Bee, criminal justice, courts and same-sex marriage for the Salt Lake Tribune and breaking news for the Tampa Bay Times. In 2017, Marissa traveled to Rwanda to report on the country's technology sector and social issues, work that was supported by a fellowship from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF). Marissa is HEFAT certified, an active member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and a mentor of student journalists.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Here's what you missed at March for Our Lives in Washington

 • VIDEO: Chicago student: ‘We are the turn of the century, the voice for change’

 • Demonstrators gather around the U.S. to protest gun violence

 • NRA host taunts Parkland students: ‘No one would know your names’ if not for tragedy

 • Paul McCartney: ‘One of my best friends was killed in gun violence’

 • 6 memorable speeches from the D.C. march

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 • On this day, teachers offered students lessons in support

 • Jennifer Rubin: They came, they marched, they inspired

 • The extraordinary number of kids who have endured school shootings since Columbine

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: The scene at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C.


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« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2018, 10:39:29 pm »


from the Los Angeles Times....

‘Welcome to the revolution’: In tears, silence and anger,
thousands march worldwide to demand action on guns


People marched in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, New Orleans, London,
Paris, Sydney and many more cities to demand action in the aftermath of
the Parkland massacre and other mass shootings in recent months.


By MICHAEL LIVINGSTON, JENNY JARVIE and ANDREA CASTILLO | 7:15PM PDT — Saturday, March 24, 2018

Students and supporters take part in the March for Our Lives in Los Angeles, held in solidarity with the larger march in Washington. D.C., organized by survivors of the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. — Photograph: GIna Ferazzi/Gina Ferazzi.
Students and supporters take part in the March for Our Lives in Los Angeles, held in solidarity with the larger march in Washington. D.C., organized by survivors
of the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. — Photograph: GIna Ferazzi/Gina Ferazzi.


TEARS rolled down Emma Gonzalez's face as she stood in silence.

For 6 minutes and 20 seconds — the time it took for a killer to rampage through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and kill 17 last month — Emma held the attention of hundreds of thousands at the March for Our Lives in Washington — mostly by standing quietly, a piercing figure with close-cropped hair in a T-shirt, army-green jacket and torn jeans.

She wasn't the only one fighting back tears. Another teen put down a placard to wipe her eyes. Friends linked arms. A man leaned in to his daughter, hugging her tight.

Emma, 18, was among several students from the Florida high school to take the podium at the Washington event, one of more than 800 rallies to call for for an end to gun violence. People marched in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Minneapolis, London, Paris and Sydney.

Thousands marched in liberal Los Angeles, closing off the downtown core for hours. More than 120 marched in Victorville, in a high-desert region more associated with conservative values. About 5,000 gathered in a park in Santa Ana. In each place, marchers demanded that lawmakers end the easy access to rapid-fire guns and take action against the everyday violence that plagues urban communities.

“Welcome to the revolution,” said one of the Parkland student-organizers, Cameron Kasky, in a speech aimed squarely at members of Congress. “We are the change…. Represent us or get out.”

Older participants included ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, who marched in New York to honor bandmate John Lennon. McCartney, wearing a “We can end gun violence” T-shirt, told CNN, “One of my best friends was killed by gun violence right around here, so it's important to me.”

Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980, outside his New York apartment.

Although celebrities marched, performed and donated to make the Washington event impossible to ignore, they did not divert the focus from student speakers.

“Six minutes, and about 20 seconds,” Emma began. “In a little over six minutes, 17 of our friends were taken from us, 15 more were injured, and everyone, absolutely everyone in the Douglas community, was forever altered. Everyone who was there understands. Everyone who has been touched by the cold grip of gun violence understands.”

The simple ferocity of Emma's rhetoric has become familiar to those who've watched Parkland students move from typical high schoolers to tragic victims to public figures with attitude. She called out each of the fallen.

“My friend Carmen would never complain to me about piano practice. Aaron Feis would never call Kyra ‘Miss Sunshine’, Alex Schachter would never walk into school with his brother,” she said.


Marchers in Los Angeles carry portraits of the 17 who were killed in the Parkland, Florida shooting. The portraits were drawn by Gracie Pekrul, 16, a student of Simi Valley Oak Park Independent School. — Photograph: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times.
Marchers in Los Angeles carry portraits of the 17 who were killed in the Parkland, Florida shooting. The portraits were drawn by Gracie Pekrul, 16, a student
of Simi Valley Oak Park Independent School. — Photograph: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times.


Her sentences began to end incomplete, like the lives of the fallen: “Alaina Petty would never. Cara Loughran would never, Chris Hixon would never, Luke Hoyer would never….”

And then she fell silent — military erect, breathing forcefully, blinking through tears. As seconds spilled into minutes, there were a few cries of “We love you, Emma!” and “Never again”. But mostly, there was almost unbearable silence. After more than four minutes, her phone sounded with two sets of four beeps.

“Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and 20 seconds,” she said. “The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job.”

The young activists and their supporters have revived a national debate over gun control, even pushing a pro-gun rights Florida Legislature to take incremental steps on restrictions that would have seemed impossible a few months ago.

They've vowed to push for more — and one goal of Saturday's event was to take their cause to a Republican administration and a Republican-majority Congress that has aligned closely with the gun advocacy of the National Rifle Association.

Although public opinion polls have long found majority support for gun control measures — and recently found that support growing — many Americans remain adamantly protective of their right to own and use guns. For the most part, they chose to lie low on Saturday, although some gathered for scattered counter-protests.

President Trump did not speak publicly about the marches, but Lindsay Walters, White House deputy press secretary, released a statement saying, “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.” The statement added that on Friday, “the Justice Department issued the rule to ban bump stocks following through on the President's commitment to ban devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”

In Los Angeles, about a dozen pro-Trump, pro-gun demonstrators rallied in front of police headquarters, waving American flags and holding signs reading “Ban jihad not guns” and “Guns will ensure our freedom”. They faced off against those seeking stronger gun control measures.

“How long have you been pro-mass shooter?” one man shouted at the small group.

“All lives matter!” a pro-gun protester shouted back, alluding to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has focused on controversial police shootings of African Americans.

“My best friend is black!” said another of the gun-rights supporters.


In Los Angeles, Emie Malanaphy, 13, lifted by Jonathan Rea, 29, holds a sign alluding the Florida sheriff's deputy who didn't go in to confront the gunman during the Parkland, Florida shooting. — Photograph: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times.
In Los Angeles, Emie Malanaphy, 13, lifted by Jonathan Rea, 29, holds a sign alluding the Florida sheriff's deputy who didn't go in to confront the gunman
during the Parkland, Florida shooting. — Photograph: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times.


Jarime Uzziel, 43, said he felt it was important to make a stand “against additional gun control.” He also wants teachers to be trained and able to carry firearms, he said.

But a much more common theme in Los Angeles was expressed in a sign held aloft by one protester: “Teachers with funds > teachers with guns”.

In the thick of the march on Broadway, a group of teenagers that included Myles Pincus, 15, carried a long banner, decorated with red handprints, that read, “NRA has blood on its hands”.

Pincus, a student at Fusion Academy, urged people not to conflate mental health and gun violence.

“This is not a mental health issue,” he said. “This is a gun issue, period.”

Giselle Jimenez, 17, a Hamilton High School student, held a sign reading, “Silly me, I didn't know that not wanting kids to be slaughtered by assault rifles was being political”.

“A school shooting could happen anywhere,” Jiminez said. “The next victims could be me, my sister, any one of my friends.”

Sheva Gross, a child development professor at UCLA, came to the march with daughters Talia, 8, and Flora, 11. Gross' sign read: “I'm so mad, I can't even think of a slogan”.

Flora said that she and her sister had gone through lockdown drills at their Culver City elementary school that make them nervous.

“To not come home again, like, ever — it's overwhelming,” Flora said.


Thousands of protesters fill Broadway in Los Angeles as they march towards Grand Park. — Photograph: GIna Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times.
Thousands of protesters fill Broadway in Los Angeles as they march towards Grand Park. — Photograph: GIna Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times.

Neither Trump nor Congress has acted on the students' demands to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Lawmakers left Washington on Friday as marchers converged from all over the nation.

Trump was nowhere within earshot, having spent Saturday at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Scores of people lined his motorcade's usual path, which has been well-traveled by the president as he shuttles between his Mar-a-Lago estate and the Trump International Golf Club during weekend visits. They held signs excoriating the NRA and supporting an assault weapons ban.

But returning to Mar-a-Lago from the golf club on Saturday afternoon, Trump's motorcade took a longer route than usual, crossing a different bridge into Palm Beach and then driving down Ocean Boulevard.

The White House did not respond to a question about the reason for the detour.

In Washington and elsewhere, voting was a recurring theme. Many teenagers said they looked forward to turning 18, when they could cast ballots. California election officials staffed a booth where adults could register, and 16- and 17-year-olds could pre-register, allowing them to vote as soon as they turn 18.

“This is a movement,” said Delaney Tarr, another Stoneman Douglas student, and it will not stop until Congress passes laws that “keep weapons of war out of the hands of civilians.”

If no assault weapons ban is passed, “we will vote them out,” she said.

The crowd responded with a more chants of “Vote them out!”


Tiny hands rise above the crowd in Los Angeles. — Photograph: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times.
Tiny hands rise above the crowd in Los Angeles. — Photograph: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times.

The speakers in Washington included Manual Arts High School student Edna Chavez, who witnessed the shooting of her brother outside their South Los Angeles home. In an interview, she said she wanted marchers to remember that gun violence isn't just about the terrifying but rare tragedy of a shooter who invades a campus. Entire neighborhoods, she said, are traumatized by violence that unfolds daily.

She said she remembered seeing the “sunset going down on South Central” and hearing the “pops, thinking they're fireworks.”

“Ricardo was his name,” Edna said, asking the crowd to say his name. “Ricardo! Ricardo!” the crowd chanted in unison.

“I lost more than my brother that day. I lost my hero,” she said.

Similar anti-gun and anti-violence themes echoed in rallies elsewhere.

In New Orleans, high school students held signs criticizing House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (Republican-Louisiana), who was seriously injured last June when a gunman opened fire on a congressional baseball practice. Even since that shooting, Scalise has voiced staunch opposition to stricter gun laws.

“He has an 'A' rating from the NRA and will never be an advocate for tougher gun laws,” Louise Olivier, 16, a junior at Benjamin Franklin High School, said as she held a sign assailing the Republican. “He almost died from a gunshot wound and still refuses to do anything.”

Olivia Keefe, 17, a classmate of Louise's, said gun control legislation should not be a partisan issue. “This is not about Democrats or Republicans at all…. This is about common sense," she said. "We need laws so a guy doesn't have the chance to go on to a baseball field and start shooting.”

In Las Vegas, Stephanie Dobyns, a survivor of the mass shooting there last fall, spoke at a rally at City Hall. She described how she went to buy a bulletproof vest from a store in Texas, and explained to the sales clerk that she wanted it to protect her while she spoke at the gun control march.

“Do you know what he said?” Dobyns asked.

“What did he say?” a lone voice yelled from the crowd. She paused again.

“He said he didn't want his vest being used by anyone participating in that rally.”

The chorus of boos was long and deafening.


__________________________________________________________________________

Michael Livingston and Andrea Castillo reported from Los Angeles and Jenny Jarvie from Washington D.C. Contributing to this report were Chris Megerian in Washington, David Montero in Las Vegas, Kurtis Lee in New Orleans and Cindy Carcamo, Gale Holland and Sonali Kohli in Los Angeles.

• Michael Livingston joined the Los Angeles Times in 2017 as a Metpro reporter. He previously worked as a crime reporter at The Herald in Rock Hill, South Carolina and the Danville Register & Bee in Virginia. While at the Register & Bee, he won multiple Virginia Press Association awards for crime and breaking news reporting. He graduated from Virginia Union University in Richmond.

• Jenny Jarvie is a freelance writer and reporter living in Atlanta, Georgia. She has worked as a staff reporter, then more recently as a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and the Sunday Telegraph in London. She was born in London in 1975, has a masters in English Literature and Philosophy from the University of Glasgow and is a past winner of the Catherine Pakenham Award for the most promising young female writer in Britain.

• Andrea Castillo covers immigration and central L.A. communities for the Los Angeles Times. Before joining the L.A. Times, she covered immigrant, ethnic and LGBT issues for the Fresno Bee. She got her start at the Oregonian in Portland. A native of Seattle, she's been making her way down the West Coast since her graduation from Washington State University.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • DOWNLOAD MP4 VIDEO: March For Our Lives Los Angeles

 • ‘The NRA has blood on its hands’: Signs from March for Our Lives rally in Los Angeles

 • Pro-gun demonstrators sound a contrary note at Los Angeles march

 • Trump steers clear of gun protests near Mar-a-Lago

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: Thousands around the world step up to March for Our Lives


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« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2018, 05:07:53 am »

for a revolution they will need guns
maybe they will join the nra  Grin
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP
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« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2018, 08:57:31 am »


Nah, there's a simple way to sort out the NRA.

The caterers at their next annual national convention need to smuggle a twin-pair of mounted .50 calibre machineguns into the convention inside a catering cart, then open up on the whole lot of the terrorist scum & filth who are members of that terrorist organisation.

That would fix a huge percentage of America's problems in less than two minutes.
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« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2018, 09:04:40 pm »


from The New York Times....

Gun Marches Keep Republicans on Defense in Mid-Term Races

The March for Our Lives is another display of energy on the left, but
the gun issue could play out differently in House and Senate races.


By ALEXANDER BURNS and JONATHAN MARTIN | 8:59PM EDT — Sunday, March 25, 2018

Governor John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who has criticized President Trump, in Los Angeles last week. He warned on Sunday that voters “do want changes” on gun policy. — Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press.
Governor John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who has criticized President Trump, in Los Angeles last week. He warned on Sunday that voters
do want changes” on gun policy. — Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press.


THE passionate gun control rallies on Saturday that brought out large crowds around the country sent a vivid signal that the issue is likely to play a major role in the 2018 mid-term elections, and that Republicans could find themselves largely on the defensive on gun issues for the first time in decades.

The gun debate could play out very differently in House and Senate races, as Republicans strain to save suburban congressional districts where gun control is popular, and Democrats defend Senate seats in red states where the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.

But, in a year of extraordinary political intensity, and in the first national election of the Trump presidency, Republican and Democratic leaders say the gun issue appears to have become a potent rallying point for voters opposed to Mr. Trump and fed up with what they see as Washington's indifference to mass shootings. The scale of demonstrations over the weekend was reminiscent of the Women's March, earlier in Mr. Trump's presidency, and underscored the intense energy of activists on the left ahead of the fall campaign.

The commitment of the young march organizers to keep the issue front and center makes it unlikely to fade before November. But they are certain to face considerable resistance from pro-gun forces, particularly the National Rifle Association, which has formidable financial resources at its disposal and a long record of successfully mobilizing conservatives and helping win elections.

Still, Republicans have already been struggling to keep their footing in densely populated suburbs where Mr. Trump is unpopular and the N.R.A. is an object of widespread scorn. The gun issue appears likely to deepen Republicans' problems in these areas, further cleaving moderate, pocketbook-minded suburban voters from the party's more hard-line rural base and raising the risks for Republicans in swing House districts around the country.

Gun control may be a complicated issue for Democrats, too, because of the makeup of the Senate races on the ballot in November. If Democrats have a path to capturing the House through mainly moderate, well-educated districts, they are also defending Senate seats in strongly conservative states, like West Virginia and North Dakota, and in Republican-leaning states like Missouri and Indiana, where pro-gun positions have long been safe political terrain.

But several prominent Republicans warned on Sunday that the party could end up alienating groups that tend to vote for candidates to the right of center if they are seen as unresponsive to the rising outcry around guns. In an atmosphere of frustration with Washington, inaction on guns could add to voters' anger at entrenched lawmakers there.

Governor John Kasich, Republican of Ohio, warned in a CNN interview on Sunday that voters “do want changes” on gun policy and Republicans were ignoring them at their peril.

“People should absolutely be held accountable at the ballot box,” said Mr. Kasich, a critic of Mr. Trump who is contemplating a run for president in 2020.

It is not only the Republican Party's dwindling moderate wing that sees danger in the gun issue. Dan Eberhart, an energy executive and major conservative donor, said Republicans risked driving away suburban voters if they did not do more to defy the N.R.A.

Mr. Eberhart pointed to Governor Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican with an A-plus N.R.A. rating for supporting the organization's agenda. Mr. Scott, who is contemplating a bid for the Senate seat held by the Democrat Bill Nelson, signed incremental new gun regulations after last month's shooting in Parkland, Florida, over the N.R.A.'s objections.

“Republicans are going to have to move a little to get 51 percent-plus in elections, and the N.R.A. will have to deal with it,” Mr. Eberhart said. “The N.R.A. is really out of step with suburban G.O.P. voters.”

While Democrats have little hope the demonstrations will lead quickly to legislation, they predict the broad-based outpouring of protest will increase pressure on Republicans. Addressing reporters on Sunday, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader and Democrat of New York, said even Republicans in the “stranglehold” of the N.R.A. must be “smelling the change in the air.”

“This wasn't Democrats only,” Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, said of the protests. “This was people just sick and tired of a ruling party that refuses to take action on something so morally urgent.”

Public opinion polls show powerful support for a range of gun measures, with overwhelming support for stricter background checks for gun purchasers and a smaller majority favoring an outright ban on assault-style weapons. A Fox News poll conducted last week found that three in five voters supported a ban on military-style weapons, while about nine in 10 supported universal background checks.

But the same poll found scant optimism among voters that Congress would act in accordance with their preferences: Only about a fifth of voters thought it was highly likely Congress would act.

The doubters are probably correct: There is relatively little time left on the congressional calendar this year, and the Republicans who control the House and Senate have shown no great appetite for tackling gun control. The $1.3 trillion spending bill that Mr. Trump signed on Friday included modest school safety measures and improvements to the background-checks system, but it did not include a number of more ambitious and popular measures, like raising the age requirement for purchasers of assault weapons.

And while the Justice Department announced last week that it would try to follow through on a promise to ban so-called bump stocks through regulation, Mr. Trump has not indicated that he intends to take any further executive action to address the issue.

Against a backdrop of plodding debate in Washington, a number of Democratic candidates in important races have already made prominent appeals to voters on the issue of gun violence, combining support for new gun restrictions with rhetorical denunciations of the N.R.A.


Steve Sisolak, a Democratic candidate for governor in Nevada, has vowed to “take on the N.R.A.” — Photograph: Erik Verduzco/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Associated Press.
Steve Sisolak, a Democratic candidate for governor in Nevada, has vowed to “take on the N.R.A.”
 — Photograph: Erik Verduzco/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Associated Press.


Several of the Democrats campaigning most assertively on firearm regulation are also competing in areas recently afflicted by gun massacres. In Nevada, Steve Sisolak, a leading Democratic candidate for governor, vowed in his first television commercial to “take on the N.R.A.” A member of the Clark County Commission, which includes Las Vegas, Mr. Sisolak was among the most visible officials responding to the mass shooting in October, which left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democratic congressional candidate in South Florida, in a district not far from Parkland, said voters were fired up because of their horror at mass shootings and their outrage at congressional inaction.

“This is a symbol of everything that is wrong right now, that is happening in Washington, D.C.,” said Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, who is challenging Representative Carlos Curbelo, a Miami Republican.

Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, who marched against gun violence in Key West on Saturday, has aired commercials describing her personal experience with gun violence: When she was 24, her father was shot and killed in Ecuador.

Other Democrats have been more timid on gun issues, particularly in more rural and heavily white, working-class districts where broad gun rights are more popular. When Democrats won an upset victory in a Pennsylvania special election this month, in a heavily conservative congressional district outside Pittsburgh, they did so by nominating a distinctly moderate candidate, Conor Lamb, who declined to back any new gun regulations after the Parkland massacre.

Val DiGiorgio, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, said that while Democrats won that special election, the race had shown “the passion of Second Amendment supporters.” But Mr. DiGiorgio said voters were also seeking remedies for gun violence.

“It's clear that Americans on all sides of the debate are looking for solutions,” Mr. DiGiorgio said.

But the energy in the Democratic base is with those who favor gun restrictions.

While the colorful signs and pleading speeches of the students drew attention on Saturday, state and local Democratic parties across the country also used the marches to register voters and sign up volunteers.

In Florida, volunteers circulated at protests in over 30 cities, passing out “commit to vote” cards that the party can later use for voter turnout purposes. And in Virginia, Democrats descended on the cities where buses were departing to the Washington march to register voters.

The efforts were not confined to large liberal and swing states. In Columbia, South Carolina, the local Democratic Party used the march in the state's capital to sign up voters for what could be a competitive governor's race this fall. The liberal group Indivisible also used the protests to kick off a campaign pressuring members of Congress during the legislative recess.

Jim Hobart, a Republican pollster, said the marches illustrated the enormous energy of the Democratic base and revealed generational changes in the electorate that Republicans will have to grapple with.

“As we have seen in special elections, Democratic enthusiasm is already very high and the gun issue just adds to that,” Mr. Hobart said, noting that students in his hometown Atlanta had traveled by bus for 10 hours to join the march in Washington. “These same students are much more likely to not just vote, but volunteer.”


__________________________________________________________________________

• Alexander Burns is a political reporter for The New York Times on the National desk, covering elections and the dynamics of political power across the country. He was one of the lead reporters covering Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, after coming to The Times in 2015 as a political correspondent for the Metro desk. Mr. Burns was a reporter and editor at Politico before joining The N.Y. Times, covering the 2012 presidential election and the Republican Party's struggle to define itself during the Obama presidency. He is a graduate of Harvard College, where he edited the Harvard Political Review.

• Jonathan Martin is a national political correspondent for The New York Times. Before joining The Times, he had served as senior political writer for Politico since its inception in 2007. He began covering politics for National Journal's political publication, The Hotline, and then reported on party politics and the aftermath of the 2006 mid-term elections for National Review magazine.  Mr. Martin is a co-author of The New York Times best seller The End of the Line: Romney vs. Obama: The 34 Days That Decided the Election (December 2012), the fourth and final e-book in Politico's 2012 series on the race for the presidency. His work has been published in The New Republic, National Journal, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He has appeared frequently on television and radio as a political analyst and commentator, including on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, MSNBC and NPR. Originally from Arlington, Virginia, Mr. Martin graduated from Hampden-Sydney College.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Students Lead Huge Rallies for Gun Control Across the U.S.

 • Support for Gun Control Seems Strong. But It May Be Softer Than It Looks.

 • Beyond Gun Control, Student Marchers Aim to Upend Elections

 • Once Again, Push for Gun Control Collides With Political Reality


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/us/politics/guns-midterms-republicans.html
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« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2018, 10:24:04 am »


Nah, there's a simple way to sort out the NRA.

The caterers at their next annual national convention need to smuggle a twin-pair of mounted .50 calibre machineguns into the convention inside a catering cart, then open up on the whole lot of the terrorist scum & filth who are members of that terrorist organisation.

That would fix a huge percentage of America's problems in less than two minutes.


do that same thing with a DNC convention would be a much better thing
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
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AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP

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