Protesters Pack Streets In Rallies Across U.S. Demanding Gun Control

More than 400 rallies were planned in cities across the U.S. on Saturday, less than three weeks after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Most of the events were organized by March for Our Lives, a group formed after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, with a stated mission of “lobbying Congress to close loopholes and pass common-sense legislation to save lives.”

Speakers at the D.C. rally included Mayor Muriel Bowser, Parkland survivor David Hogg and Garnell Whitfield Jr., whose mother died in a racially motivated shooting that left 10 dead at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store last month.

Organizers hoped to attract 50,000 people to the D.C. event, but the actual crowd appeared in the low thousands amid rainy conditions, according to the Washington Post.

Initial March for Our Lives protests took place following the 2018 Parkland massacre, with up to 2.2 million people taking part in more than 750 events.

The Democratic-controlled House passed a package largely along party lines Wednesday that included sweeping new gun control measures, such as banning high-capacity magazines and raising the minimum age to buy semi-automatic rifles to 21, but Republicans in the Senate are all but certain to use the filibuster to block the bill as they negotiate toward much more modest, bipartisan legislation.