Over 80 protesters gathered in Harvey Milk Promenade Park in downtown Long Beach for the March for Our Lives, a demonstration against gun violence on Saturday, June 11.
There have been over 30 mass shootings so far this month, according to The Gun Violence Archive.
The demonstration followed a racially motivated shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and a school shooting committed in Uvalde, Texas that left 21 people dead.
“They went to school, that’s all they did. And now hundreds of parents are mourning their kids,” said Emily Cardona, a college student that attended the protest. “The country is mourning these children and it’s the least we can do to walk on a beautiful [Saturday afternoon] for these people.”
The crowd spread across multiple blocks at a time while walking through downtown, holding signs that read “Protect Kids Not Guns,” “Stricter Gun Laws” and “Are We Next?” Multiple cars driving through the area honked their horns in support of the protesters.
Katie Bradley, a resident of Seal Beach, attended the March for Our Lives protest and carried a sign reminding people of the 2011 mass shooting committed in Seal Beach that killed eight people.
“It was extremely traumatic for our community and nothing has changed since,” Bradley said.
This was Bradley’s second year attending the march. She told the Signal Tribune that she spent some time working under Congress members who are “trying to fix the issue,” and described it as “really hard.”
“I just think it’s really important that we actually try and make change because a lot of people say that going out and doing something isn’t going to change anything,” said Annika Stewart, an LBUSD student that helped organize a student walk-out in response to the ongoing gun violence. “[…] Not doing anything isn’t going to do anything either.”
After marching to the Long Beach Civic Center, the crowd returned to Harvey Milk Park, where they chanted “Hey, hey NRA, How many kids have you killed today?” and “Thoughts and prayers are not enough.”
