Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to flood the nation’s capital\u00a0on Saturday\u00a0for the \u201cMarch for Our Lives\u201d to support tougher gun controls and protest Congress’s refusal to consider them.<\/p>\n
Organizers received a National Park Service permit for 500,000 people, an audience to rival enormous demonstrations like the \u201cWomen\u2019s March\u201d staged in Washington the day after\u00a0President Trump<\/a><\/span>\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., organized and inspired the event after a gunman killed 17 of their classmates and members of the school faculty on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n \u201cWe students have become victims of our government\u2019s glaring inaction, but never again,\u201d\u00a0Demitri Hoth, a senior at Stoneman Douglas, said\u00a0Friday\u00a0at the Capitol.\u00a0\u201cWe have come here today to hold accountable politicians and their disturbing inaction.<\/p>\n \u201cNever again will our voices \u2014 students’ voices \u2014 be shunned into silence.\u201d<\/p>\n The young advocates have a tough road ahead, facing fierce resistance from a Republican-led Congress and the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), both of which have\u00a0resisted tougher gun laws\u00a0for years. While the Florida killings had prompted Trump to sound early calls for new gun limits, there was little appetite for such reforms among GOP\u00a0leaders on Capitol Hill. And Trump has since backed off his initial push for\u00a0significant restrictions.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s\u00a0march is designed to keep the movement’s momentum from petering out.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think these students are going to take no for an answer,\u201d Sen.\u00a0Amy Klobuchar<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(D-Minn.) said\u00a0Friday. \u201cThis march isn\u2019t the end, it\u2019s the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n The student protests have already had some immediate impact on the congressional debate. The $1.3 trillion omnibus that Trump signed into law on Friday includes efforts to bolster background checks before gun sales and empower federal researchers to study gun violence as a public health issue.<\/p>\n But gun reformers in and out of Congress say it\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are baby steps,\u201d said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.<\/p>\n