DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

Excerpts from annual report of Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance

Quite a year—OREPA members rose up to meet the greatest financial challenge in our 30-year history, raising more than $50,000 in less than 60 days to fund a lawsuit to stop the Uranium Processing Facility nuclear bomb plant planned for Oak Ridge.

At the same time, it was the year the future broke open with new possibilities—the UN passed the Ban Treaty that outlaws all nuclear weapons development, production, possession, deployment, testing, use, threat of use…

It was the year that we traveled to Germany and came to a new collaboration with colleagues in Europe who are aggressively resisting the deployment of US nuclear weapons in five countries there.

It was the year we went to the United Nations to help lead a workshop on US nuclear weapons production and participate in the initial negotiating stages of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—it was exciting and humbling to watch the deliberations and realize history was turning before our eyes because of the courage of the delegates and the leadership of Costa Rica’s Elayne Whyte Gómez.

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Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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It was the year we turned our eyes to the future with determination to develop a new generation of leaders in the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons as we began to implement the goals of our Next Generation Leadership Fund.

Meanwhile, we continued to do the many things that has made OREPA a strong and effective organization—publishing a newsletter that Ralph Nader called, in his year-end blog, a “must-read.”

And we maintained our on-line presence; celebrated the conclusion of the 18th year of uninterrupted Sunday vigils at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex by launching year 19; published the Reflection Booklet; kept our staff and our bills paid; took seven people to Washington, DC, to oppose the UPF bomb plant in meetings with Congress and Administration officials; and worked with our colleagues in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability to develop and carry out strategies to oppose new bomb plants and new bombs while we advocate for responsible policies for nuclear waste and cleanup programs.

Oh, yes—we also sued the National Nuclear Security Administration and celebrated the Nobel Peace Prize going to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Most important of all—not one bit of OREPA’s work this past year would have been possible without the persistent, amazing support of our members. Many of you not only sent money, but wrote letters to the editor, pressured your elected officials, invited OREPA to make presentations, held fundraising events for the lawsuit, and educated yourselves about the trillion dollar plan to “modernize” the US nuclear arsenal.

So our year-in-review closes with a huge Thank You to everyone who took part in this grand year.

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Campaign description from Nuclear Ban US (excerpts)

The Campaign for Treaty Compliance is about getting individuals, businesses, faith communities, schools, organizations, cities and states to be in ‘compliance’ with the Nuclear Ban Treaty. This will put pressure on the nuclear weapons industry and eventually force the federal government to implement the Treaty.

Click for more information about…

Becoming ‘treaty compliant’ yourself

For most people, Treaty Compliance is pretty simple. It means:

* You are not employed by any of the companies that make nuclear weapons.

* You do not have personal investments in any of them.

* You will not buy any of their products in future . . .

Helping to get a group or organization to be ‘treaty compliant'(neighborhood, club, school, university, business, faith community, civic organization)

Any organization or institution that wants to be on the right side of history and help rid the world of nuclear weapons can decide to be in ‘compliance’ with the Nuclear Ban Treaty. To have the force of legality behind it, normally it will be the board or trustees or some similar body who will need to agree to this. That body may then oversee the rest of the process or assign a smaller (sub-)committee to do so. . . .

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Can we abolish all nuclear weapons?

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Working locally to get your town/city to be ‘treaty compliant’

There are 220 towns, cities, counties and Native American nations across the United States which declared themselves Nuclear Free Zones (NFZs) in the 1980s. Some of the local ordinances and city codes that established these zones were largely symbolic, but many had real teeth and included fines and other sanctions for violations. Sample ordinances and city codes are located here.

Many of these existing NFZs are already Treaty Compliant with the Nuclear Ban Treaty. Others may want to revise their existing legislation to be fully in compliance with the new Treaty.

In addition to NFZs, there are 211 cities in the United States who have signed the Mayors for Peace (MfP) covenant. This commits the mayor to “make every effort…to achieve the total abolition of nuclear weapons…” These mayors may choose to appoint a Mayoral Commission to oversee Treaty Compliance for their city. . . .

Campaigning state-wide to get your state to be ‘treaty compliant’

Individual states of the Union cannot sign international agreements, but they can decide to comply with such agreements. When President Trump announced he would be pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, cities and states across the country stepped up to the plate to commit themselves to this Agreement, with or without the federal government’s blessing.

Sixteen states (plus Puerto Rico) have so far committed themselves to meeting these targets because they recognize that climate change poses an existential threat to humanity and that the US government is out of step with the global consensus on what to do to address this problem. Nuclear weapons also pose an existential threat to humanity, and once again the US government is out of step with the global consensus on how to eliminate these weapons once and for all. . . .

Campaigning nationally to get the federal government to sign the Treaty

The only protection from nuclear weapons is to eliminate them all. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons bans all nuclear weapons and seeks their total elimination. Ultimately, we want the US President to sign this Treaty, we want the Senate to ratify it, and we want to see it fully implemented and enforced. You can sign the WILPF petition calling for this here. You can also urge your member of Congress to sign the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge here. . . .

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN .

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article by Cassandra Basler from National Public Radio (reprinted as non-commercial use)

April 19: When Lane Murdock, a high school sophomore, heard that 17 high school students and educators had been killed in a shooting in Parkland, Fla., she says she felt numb. To her, and so many others, mass shootings can feel all too common in the U.S. “In the time I’ve been in high school we’ve had the Pulse, Las Vegas and now, [the Parkland] shooting,” Murdock says.

So that same day, Feb.14, Murdock started a  Change.org petition  that so far has received more than a quarter-million signatures. Her ask? A walkout to protest violence in schools that she planned to coincide with the anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. Murdock was born in 2002.

Lane Murdock, a high school sophomore, says she felt numb after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and knew it was time for her to try to make some change.

On one of the last days of spring break, she and seven other students from her high school in Ridgefield, Conn., gather around a few tables at their town rec center. They have been working hard, even losing sleep, trying to get organized for the day. As Murdock says, “Success knows no sleep.”

This is, by far, the biggest event they have ever planned. She and her team have more than 2,500 walkouts across the country registered through their website. They’ve drafted a long to-do list, including everything from securing a stage for speeches for their local walkout, to reaching out to the national press.

“Prioritize,” Murdock tells her team, “We’re not going to be able to get 100 percent of these things, I can guarantee that, but it’s important that we get the important things.”

Murdock wants the walkout to go down in history but acknowledges that it won’t represent every student’s perspective. Some polls show that young people are no more liberal  than older generations on gun control.

And other students who live with gun violence regularly have said they don’t feel represented  in the social movements following the shooting at Parkland.

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“There’s gun violence that’s been happening every day that isn’t a school shooting,” Murdock says. She wants the day to be inclusive. On the other hand, she knows it will be uncomfortable.

“We get hate comments online all the time because we’re angering people, and we’re angering people because we’re scaring them, and if we’re scaring them it’s because we’re doing something,” she says.

She wants people to know that she’s imagining this day to be very different than the March For Our Lives  or the 17 minutes of silence on March 14 in honor of the victims in Parkland, Fla. This walkout will last from 10 a.m. through the end of the day.

“People ask me, like, ‘Why? Why all day?’ ” Murdock says. That’s because “this is a topic that deserves more than 17 minutes.” Part of the plan for the day is to get students together in what they refer to as “a call to action,” registering voters or writing to elected representatives about the need for further gun control, for example.

These student organizers have gotten help from a national nonprofit called Indivisible, a group that says it aims to “fuel” young people to “resist the Trump agenda.” Paul Kim, a senior at Ridgefield in charge of communications for the event, says Indivisible helped the high school organizers map their outreach online.

“I got every chapter signed up in Texas,” Kim says, talking about all the walkouts they’ve registered. “And these people emailed back … I could like feel the Texas in the email. The accent, everything.” The group laughs.

To Murdock, the widespread support she says they’ve seen shows that sensible gun control doesn’t have to be partisan.

“It is not conservative or liberal. It is just about making sure our children don’t get harmed in school and we don’t live in a community and in a country that has institutionalized fear,” Murdock says. “I think we’re all sick of it. That’s why we’re doing this.”

She grew up with that fear. Her school had regular lockdown drills after 26 students and educators were killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School when she was in fifth grade. It happened just 20 miles from her classroom.

She says there is a reason why she felt desensitized when she heard about Parkland. She and her team of fellow organizers at Ridgefield say that gun violence in the U.S. has gone on for too long.

“Change happens through patience and this fight does not stop after April 20,” Murdock says. “There is going to be a lot of work to be done after April 20 and that is going to include you guys and it’s going to include tons of students all across this nation,” she says talking to the group.

At 10 a.m. local time on Friday, thousands of students will march out of their classes wearing orange for gun safety and chanting for change.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Reuters (reprinted by permission)

Leaders of the student-led anti-gun movement, who inspired classroom walkouts across the country on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, say they plan to maintain their activism through the long summer break.

This week’s protests [on April 20] marked the second mass student walkout since a 19-year-old man opened fire at a Parkland, Florida high school in February, killing 17 people. It signaled the emergence of a growing national campaign led by young people to lessen gun violence and toughen laws on firearms sales.

Youths take part in a National School Walkout anti-gun march in Washington Square Park in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., April 20, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

But the movement faces a major early challenge as the traditional three-month summer break approaches for most U.S. public schools at a critical moment in their bid to be heard by politicians in their home states and Washington, D.C.

“The reason why this has been so huge (is that) we’re in school, we talk to our classmates, we spread it around, everybody’s around so it’s kind of easier to show up,” said Vivian Reynoso, 17, a junior at Tucson High Magnet School in Tucson, Arizona, who helped organize rallies for both nationwide demonstrations in the past month.

“Of course you fear (losing the momentum),” said Reynoso, who like her peers in the campaign was born a year or more after the Columbine shootings. “I’m pretty sure even the Parkland victims are afraid of that. That’s why we need to be pushing, even if it’s summer, to keep telling people to keep talking about the issue and not to forget to about it.”

In the nearly two decades since Columbine seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting rampage in 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide, school shootings have become almost commonplace in the United States.

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Students at Columbine, which has not held classes on April 20 since the massacre, did not take part in the walkout, and were encouraged to do community service instead.

Even as students prepared for Friday’s protests wearing orange, the color of the anti-gun movement, news began trickling out that a 17-year-old student had been wounded in a shooting at a high school near Ocala, Florida, some 225 miles northwest of Parkland.

SECOND AMENDMENT

The debate over guns in America, where the right to bear arms is protected under the Second Amendment of the Constitution, has raged nearly since the nation’s founding.

The students hope to succeed where other activists have failed in enacting stricter legislation on gun ownership, either at the state or federal level.

As anger fades over the Parkland shootings, the test for students will be in organizing for gun reform. Many of the protests featured voter registration drives, with students aiming to make it a major issue for midterm elections in November.

“Who knows whether they maintain the energy or not but there are historic examples of student-led movements that have played an important role in moving things forward, (for example) the Civil rights movements,” said Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“We’ve seen these kids take a real leadership role on this issue,” said Winkler, author of a history of the debate over gun control in America. “Whether they can sustain it not remains to be seen.”

The March 24 “March For Our Lives” rallies in cities across the United States were some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations in decades, with hundreds of thousands of young Americans and their supporters taking to the streets.

Friday’s walkouts, though smaller in scale, signaled the determination of the students to press on with their movement.

“The way we’re viewing the summer right now is it’s really an opportunity to put in a lot of work on some really big plans we have going for the return to school in August,” said Gavin Pierce, 21, a college junior studying film in Los Angeles and an organizer of the “March for Our Lives” pro-gun control group.

    “Everyone is really eager to keep this going and to keep on organizing until we see real change,” Pierce said.

Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Ben Klayman in Detroit, Zach Fagensen in Miami, Edgar Mendez in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, Karen Dillion in Mission, Kansas and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Richard Chang

. DISARMAMENT & SECURITY.

An article by Irene Kai / Ashland Culture of Peace Commission in the Ashland Daily Tidings

This is a journey of pure magic and grace. I went with my daughter to the U.K. for an art exhibit in early September 2015, and on a whim we decided to tour the Snowdonia National Park in Wales. We drove deep into the mountains on a narrow two-lane road with hair pin turns on the “wrong” side of the road. As dusk fell, we decided to go back to town. The nearest turning outlet was behind the mountain, so I drove into a hidden nearby space to turn. As I turned, I suddenly saw a two story tall glass tower with a flame inside near the top of it. An inscription on the glass said: “The World Peace Flame.” I was awed. Deep in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, I was greeted by a living flame representing World Peace. At that instant, I felt as if the flame ignited the sacred flame in my heart. I realized World Peace begins with me.

World Peace Flame Monument, Snowdonia Mountain Lodge, Wales

I went into the building behind the monument where a woman told me the history of the World Peace Flame. In 1999, the princess of the Netherlands went to five continents to collect seven sacred flames, flew them via military and commercial jets and united them in Wales. The Asian flame was from the eternal flame that burns at Gandhi’s memorial. The monument in Wales is the original World Peace Flame Monument. I was invited to light a candle from the flame and I brought it back to Ashland.

I came to Ashland 20 years ago via Hong Kong, New York, London and Los Angeles, not knowing anything about Oregon. Over a decade ago, I was attracted to the local Native American culture, and became very involved with the Ashland Native American group and befriended Roy Hayes, Chief Joseph’s great-great grandson. 

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How can culture of peace be developed at the municipal level?

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I learned deeply about the culture of the Native American’s history in the Rogue Valley. 

Jacksonville was once a thriving Chinatown 200 years ago. Hundreds of Chinese migrants came to southern Oregon as laborers for the gold miners. The ditches they dug are still visible today. When the gold dried up, they were chased out and some were killed. They vanished without a trace. This group of migrants were from Toisan, southern China, the village of my family. They were my ancestral relatives.

On Sept. 21, 2015, the International Day of Peace, my partner David Wick and I launched the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission (ACPC). During the launch, I lit the candle I brought back from Wales. During the ceremony, I was inspired to bring the World Peace Flame monument to Ashland, to honor our ancestors and to heal their sufferings.

By bringing healing and peace to our ancestors, we, the descendants will be able to release the burden of the sufferings of our linage and learn to practice living in peace for ourselves, our children and their children. 

The physical official live eternal World Peace Flame on our city ground will become a beacon of light that represents hope, healing, forgiveness, unity and humility for all who see it. The only other World Peace Flame in the United States is in the Civil Rights Museum in the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee, the assassination site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For almost three years, I told anyone who had influence in the city of Ashland that I would like to install a World Peace Flame Monument in Ashland. Everyone thought it was a great idea, smiled and said: “Good Luck.” One day, David Wick and I wandered into the Southern Oregon University Sustainability Center. We walked into the old farm house and saw the architectural drawing of the “Thalden Pavilion — The Center of Outrageous Innovation” on the wall. I saw a tower next to the main structure and said to David, “That is the perfect place for the World Peace Flame!” 

Barry and Kathryn Thalden, strong supporters of ACPC, agreed to have the World Peace Flame installed at the base of the obelisk and informed us that it will be flanked by two 28 ft. cedar teaching poles, carved by Russell Beebe, a local Native American sculptor. How perfect!

ACPC is responsible for our part of the construction for the housing of the World Peace Flame. I invite you to join me on this magical journey of grace to bring the World Peace Flame to Ashland. With your generous donations, it will become a reality. Please visit our website at www.ashlandcpc.org.

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An article by Greta Zarro for Common Dreams (reprinted according to a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License)

America is up in arms about guns. If last month’s “March for Our Lives,” which attracted over one million marchers nationwide, is any indication, we’ve got a serious problem with gun violence, and people are fired up about it.  
But what’s not being talked about in the mainstream media, or even by the organizers and participants in the March for Our Lives movement, is the link between the culture of gun violence and the culture of war, or militarism, in this nation. Nik Cruz, the now infamous Parkland, FL shooter, was taught how to shoot a lethal weapon in the very school that he later targeted in the heart-breaking Valentine’s Day Massacre. Yes, that’s right; our children are trained as shooters in their school cafeterias, as part of the U.S. military’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) marksmanship program.  

Members of the Patch High School drill team compete in the team exhibition portion of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps drill meet at Heidelberg High School April 25. (Photo: Kristen Marquez, Herald Post/flickr/cc)

Nearly 2,000 U.S. high schools have such JROTC marksmanship programs, which are taxpayer-funded and rubber-stamped by Congress. Cafeterias are transformed into firing ranges, where children, as young as 13 years old, learn how to kill. The day that Nik Cruz opened fire on his classmates, he proudly wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the letters “JROTC.” JROTC’s motto? “Motivating Young People to Be Better Citizens.” By training them to wield a gun?  

I want to know why America isn’t marching against the military’s marksmanship programs. I want to know why millions aren’t knocking on their representatives’ doors and refusing to pay their taxes, until congressionally-approved firing ranges are removed from schools. Meanwhile, military recruiters hobnob with students during lunch break, then train them how to shoot in that same cafeteria and lure them to enlist. No doubt, the military’s pitch is slick, and economically enticing. That is, until the trainees turn on their classmates and teachers.

Perhaps what’s key above all, however, is that JROTC, and U.S. militarism as a whole, is embedded in our sociocultural framework as Americans, so much so that to question it is to cast doubt on one’s patriotic allegiance to this nation. To me, this explains why the Nik Cruz JROTC connection is not even an option on the table in the dialogue about gun violence. Why, at last month’s March for Our Lives in D.C., when my colleagues held up signs about the JROTC marksmanship program, marchers nodded in approval and bragged that they were JROTC trained.  

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The culture of war is pervasive in our society, through military-funded Hollywood films and video games, the militarization of the police, and JROTC and ROTC programs in our schools. The Pentagon receives the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all of our children, unless parents tell their children’s schools to opt them out. Nearly all of us are culpable, wittingly or unwittingly, in supporting the spread of U.S. militarism through our silent complicity and our tax dollars.  

The average mass shooter in this country is, by and large, an American male with a history of mental illness, criminal charges, or illicit substance abuse, according to a recently released March 2018 report by the U.S. Secret Services. He is not an ISIS terrorist or Al-Qaeda plotter. In fact, findings show that, above any ideology, mass attackers are most often motivated by a personal vendetta. What the Secret Services report does not talk about, however, is the disproportionate number of mass attackers who have been trained by the U.S. military. While veterans account for 13% of the the adult population, the data shows that more than 1/3 of adult perpetrators of the 43 worst mass killings between 1984 and 2006 had been in the U.S. military. Further, a 2015 study in the Annals of Epidemiology found that veterans kill themselves at a rate 50% higher than their civilian counterparts. This speaks volumes about the damaging psychological impact of war, and, I would argue, the deleterious potential of the warlike “us vs. them” mentality that JROTC and ROTC programs instill in the minds of developing youth, not to mention the very real marksmanship skills that they teach.  

While military recruits with access to a gun pose a risk to Americans at home, meanwhile, our soldiers abroad are not much more effective at policing the world. As military spending has skyrocketed in recent decades, now accounting for over fifty percent of U.S. federal discretionary spending, according to the National Priorities Project, so has terrorism.

Despite our country’s endless state of military “interventions” in other nations, the Global Terrorism Index in fact records a steady increase in terrorist attacks from the beginning of our “war on terror” in 2001 to the present. Federal intelligence analysts and retired officers admit that U.S. occupations generate more hatred, resentment, and blowback than they prevent. According to a declassified intelligence report on the war on Iraq, “despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.” With the U.S. government spending a combined $1 trillion annually on war and preparations for war, including the stationing of troops at over 800 bases worldwide, there is little left of the public purse to spend on domestic necessities.

The American Society of Civil Engineers ranks U.S. infrastructure as a D+. We rank 4th in the world for wealth inequality, according to the OECD. U.S. infant mortality rates are the highest in the developed world, according to UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston. Communities across the nation lack access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation, a UN human right that the U.S. fails to recognize.

Forty million Americans live in poverty. Given this lack of a basic social safety net, is it any wonder that people enlist in the armed forces for economic relief and a supposed sense of purpose, grounded in our nation’s history of associating military service with heroism? 
 
If we want to prevent the next mass shooting, we need to stop fueling the culture of violence and militarism, and that starts with ending JROTC marksmanship programs in our schools.

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A multimedia gallery from Telesur

Thousands demonstrated across the United States [on March 24] to demand gun controls in the wake of February’s school shooting in Florida, which killed 17 people. The nationwide March For Our Lives rallies, some led by student survivors, aim to break the legislative gridlock stymying efforts to restrict firearms in a nation where mass shootings like the one on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become frighteningly common.

Across the United States and outside U.S. embassies, hundreds of thousands of campaigners took part in the ‘March for Our Lives’ anti-gun protests. Photo:Reuters

With slogans such as ‘If they choose guns over our kids, vote them out,’ protesters in Washington jammed Pennsylvania Avenue as students from the Florida high school where 17 people were murdered called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue. Photo:Reuters

Celebrities sang and survivors spoke, rallying the crowds with chants of ‘Never Again’ and promising that the Florida Parkland students would challenge congressmen and ‘Vote Them Out.’ Photo:Reuters

Students listen as Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Florida, addresses crowds at the ‘March for Our Lives’ event. Photo:Reuters

Protesters hold photos of school shooting victims during a demonstration demanding stricter gun controls in New York City. Photo:Reuters

Parkland shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez addresses the ‘March For Our Lives’ event before pausing for a full 6 minutes and 20 seconds silence – the time it took for the gunman to kill 17 of her Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School classmates. Photo:Reuters

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On Friday, Trump signed a US$1.3 trillion bill that includes modest improvements to background checks for gun sales and grants to help schools prevent gun violence. Photo:Reuters

“I have learned to duck from bullets before I learned to read,” said Edna Chavez, 17, a student at the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, who lost a brother to gun violence. Photo:Reuters

“Politicians: either represent the people or get out. Stand with us or beware, the voters are coming,” Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old high school junior, told the crowd. Photo:Reuters

Student marchers filled streets nationwide, including in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego and St. Louis. Photo:Reuters

Shooting survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida led the demonstration. Photo:Reuters

More than 800 demonstrations were scheduled, with events as far afield as London, Tokyo, Mauritius and Stockholm. Photo:Reuters

.DISARMAMENT & SECURITY.

An article from Thomson Reuters

Chanting “never again,” hundreds of thousands of young Americans and their supporters answered a call to action from survivors of last month’s Florida high school massacre and rallied across the United States on Saturday [March 24] to demand tighter gun laws.

In some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations for decades, protesters called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue. Voter registration activists fanned out in the crowds, signing up thousands of the nation’s newest voters.

Frame from video on Reuters website

At the largest March For Our Lives protest, demonstrators jammed Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue where they listened to speeches from survivors of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

There were sobs as one teenage survivor, Emma Gonzalez, read the names of the 17 victims and then stood in silence. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared out over the crowd for the rest of a speech that lasted six minutes and 20 seconds, the time it took for the gunman to slaughter them.

The massive March For Our Lives rallies aimed to break legislative gridlock that has long stymied efforts to increase restrictions on firearms sales in a nation where mass shootings like the one in Parkland have become frighteningly common.

“Politicians: either represent the people or get out. Stand with us or beware, the voters are coming,” Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, told the crowd.

Another survivor, David Hogg, said it was a new day.

“We’re going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run not as politicians, but as Americans. Because this – this – is not cutting it,” he said, pointing at the white-domed Capitol behind the stage.

Youthful marchers filled streets in cities including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego and St. Louis.

More than 800 demonstrations were scheduled in the United States and overseas, according to coordinators, with events as far afield as London, Mauritius, Stockholm and Sydney.

‘Take Their Liberty Away’

Underlining sharp differences among the American public over the issue, counter-demonstrators and supporters of gun rights were also in evidence in many U.S. cities.

Organizers of the anti-gun rallies want Congress, many of whose members are up for re-election in November, to ban the sale of assault weapons like the one used in the Florida rampage and to tighten background checks for gun buyers.

On the other side of the debate, gun rights advocates cite constitutional guarantees of the right to bear arms.

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“All they’re doing is asking the government to take their liberty away from them without due process,” Brandon Howard, a 42-year-old Trump supporter, said of the protesters in the capital. He had a sign saying: “Keep your hands off my guns.”

Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” sweatshirt, 16-year-old Connor Humphrey of San Luis Obispo, California, said: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

Humphrey, who was visiting Washington with his family for spring break, said he owns guns for target shooting and hunting and uses them responsibly. His school had a lockdown exercise last week.

“I think teachers should have guns,” he said, echoing a proposal made by Trump after the Parkland killings.

Still, rallies for tighter firearm restrictions also sprang up in rural, Republican-leaning communities ranging from Lewiston, Idaho to Logan, Utah where there is strong support for the Second Amendment constitutional right to own guns.

Among those marching next to New York’s Central Park to call for tighter gun controls was pop star Paul McCartney, who said he had a personal stake in the debate.

“One of my best friends was shot not far from here,” he told CNN, referring to Beatles bandmate John Lennon, who was gunned down near the park in 1980.

Taking aim at the National Rifle Association gun lobby, teenagers chanted, “Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids have you killed today?”

The young U.S. organizers have won kudos and cash from dozens of celebrities, with singers Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande, as well as “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, among those performing in Washington. Actor George Clooney and his human rights attorney wife, Amal, donated $500,000 and said they would be at the Washington rally.

The U.S. football team the New England Patriots loaned its plane to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and their families to travel to Washington.

At the march in Washington, an elementary school student from Virginia, Naomi Wadler, 11, captivated demonstrators when she spoke up for African American girls who were victims of gun violence but whose stories “don’t make the front page.”

White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said the administration applauded “the many courageous young Americans” who exercised their free-speech rights.

“Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the president’s,” said Walters, noting that on Friday the Justice Department proposed rule changes that would effectively ban “bump stock” devices that let semi-automatic weapons fire like a machine gun.

Also on Friday, Trump signed a $1.3-trillion spending bill including modest improvements to background checks for gun sales and grants to help schools prevent gun violence.

Former President Barack Obama said on Twitter that he and his wife Michelle were inspired by all the young people who made the marches happen.

“Keep at it. You’re leading us forward. Nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change,” Obama said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson, Lacey Johnson, Katanga Johnson and Lauren Young in Washington, Alice Popovici in New York, Phoenix Tso in Los Angeles, Zachary Fagenson in Parkland, Robert Chiarito in Chicago, Jim Oliphant in West Palm Beach and Andrew Hay in Taos; Editing by Daniel Wallis, James Dalgleish and Nick Zieminski)