Hundreds of thousands of people, many of them students, have joined anti-gun protests across America and around the world in one of the largest expressions of popular opposition in years.
The focal point was the March for Our Lives rally in Washington DC, but tens of thousands also turned out in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Minneapolis in demonstrations sparked by the survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day. Beyond America – where there were about 800 events – there were protests in London, Belfast, Geneva and a number of other cities across the globe.
The marches felt like the culmination of more than a month of political pressure led by the survivors of the massacre in which 17 people were killed – including 14 students – and more than a dozen others injured. There have been some successes in that time, with some gun control measures having been signed into law in Florida, but the main message was that this was the start of something, not the end.
