"March for Our Lives" demonstrations planned across U.S. this weekend calling for action on gun violence
NEW YORK - Thousands of people are expected to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday to push for gun reform, as the debate looms in Washington.
CBS2's Leah Mishkin spoke with some of the organizers from March for Our Lives who have hope this moment will be different.
Felix Tager and Angela Malley are getting the final touches ready for Saturday. The Brooklyn-bound side of the bridge will shut down for thousands to march to Manhattan at noon. The group will then make their way to the Financial District, where a rally will follow.
"Nineteen thousand, one hundred people have died as of today from gun violence in America this year alone. We're marching for them," Tager said. "Also marching for effective change."
The student and youth-led organization March for Our Lives, which is hosting this event, was created in 2018 after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen people were killed.
"The entire community was shattered," Malley said.
Malley is an alumni of the school. She wasn't there that day, but walked those same hallways, and knew people who were killed.
"Coach Aaron Feis, he selflessly ran into gunfire. He had no armor. He had no gun. And he ran in there to protect those kids," Malley said. "My history teacher saw several of her students murdered in front of her eyes."
She says the most recent shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas hit too close to home.
"It's devastating. It's totally devastating. It's so hard to see not only the gun violence that happens every single day - people are killed every single day - but to see an entire community shattered the way mine was is just so heartbreaking," Malley said.
On Wednesday, the House passed a gun control bill that would raise the age to buy semi-automatic rifles to 21. These organizers say now is the moment to act to get the Senate to pass it. They also want to see universal background checks.
"We fight for an end to gun violence," Tager said.
Both Tager and Malley haven't lost hope. They want politicians to know this movement has the power to vote them out.
Organizers say 400 marches will be taking place Saturday across the country. There will also be marches happening in other countries.
Leah Mishkin contributed to this report.