Motivated by a fresh surge in mass shootings in several U.S. cities, rallies were held across the nation Saturday as part of a renewed push for gun control.
Lillian Scott is an organizer with the Fort Worth demonstration for “March For Our Lives”, which was founded by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
“55 days later after we marched, there was a school shooting at Sante Fe High School,” Scott said, referring to their 2018 march. “That has continued and continued. There was a shooting in Buffalo, then Uvalde, Tulsa the other day. It just doesn’t stop.”
The marches Saturday come more than two weeks after the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed.
Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters.
“We as a country…it just happens. We mourn and then it happens again. We just have become numb to it,” she said. “Our parents remember exactly where they were on 9/11. This is the stuff we’re going to remember and tell our kids about. That’s not something we want to do. It’s devastating that now four years later, this is still a conversation but we should be looking at that and that should be inspiring us to change.”
Donna Wright of Fort Worth brought her grandchildren to the rally Saturday. They are her inspiration for change, Wright said.
“I want them to be safe going to school,” she said. “I really felt this way during Sandy Hook. I really thought our leadership and government would do something about it, but no.”
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
The U.S. House voted 223-204 last week to pass the “Protecting Our Kids Act”, a wide-ranging package of gun control legislation. However, the measure is not expected to pass the Senate.
“It has not even been 24 hours since the last mass shooting,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York said Thursday. “Who knows when until the next one? My friends. What the hell are you waiting for?”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio debated against the measure while it was being discussed in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
“It will hamper the rights of law-abiding citizens. It will do nothing to stop mass shootings. We need to get serious on understanding why this keeps happening,” Rep. Jordan said. “Democrats are always fixating on curtailing the rights of law-abiding citizens, rather than trying to understand why this evil happens. Until we figure out the why, we will always mourn losses without fixing the problem.”
In Fort Worth, protestors said they hoped Saturday inspired hope and change. Demonstrations were also held in Frisco, Austin, and other Texas cities.
