45,000 vases for weapon offerings
Americans are calling for tougher gun laws nationwide
06/11/2022, 11:04 p.m
It has been almost four weeks since an 18-year-old shot and killed 21 people at a school in Uvalde, Texas. Thousands of Americans took to the streets on Saturday to demand consequences – and know that the US President is by their side.
Several thousand US citizens demonstrated nationwide on Saturday for stricter gun laws. In the capital, Washington, activists set up more than 45,000 vases of flowers – one for each person who has died from gun violence in the United States since 2020. According to the organizers, around 40,000 people took part in the march in light rain at the central rally. “Protect people, not guns” read a sign carried by a protester. Another poster said “enough is enough”.
More than 45,000 vases stood in front of the Capitol for the people who died from gun violence in the United States since 2020.
(Foto: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS)
More than 450 protest rallies were planned for Saturday in various US cities. “I join you in repeating my call for Congress to take action,” US President Joe Biden tweeted in support of the demonstrations in hundreds of cities across the country. The “March for Our Lives” movement, which was founded by the bereaved and survivors of a shooting spree in Florida in 2018, had called for this.
Biden hopes at least for age tightening
There had been a series of particularly bloody gun attacks in the United States in recent weeks. In mid-May, an 18-year-old shot dead 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in the small Texas town of Uvalde. More than 19,300 people have been killed by guns in the United States this year alone.
A cross-party group of senators, led by Democrat Chris Murphy, is currently negotiating gun rights reform. In the past, the conservative Republicans had repeatedly prevented tightening of the lax US gun laws.
US President Biden recently made a compromise proposal in view of the years of blockade. “If we don’t achieve the ban on assault rifles that is actually necessary, we must at least raise the minimum age for their purchase to 21 years,” he demanded.