Demonstrators around the United States and world are gathering on Saturday to protest gun violence at local versions of the March for Our Lives rally, which has drawn an enormous crowd of protesters to the nation’s capital.
More than 800 events are expected to take place worldwide, according to the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety. The largest marches outside of Washington are expected in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Demonstrations are also taking place in Parkland, Fla., where a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead became the catalyst for the marches, and in Las Vegas, where a gunman killed 58 people at a country music festival last year.
A march is also planned in Jonesboro, Ark., on the 20th anniversary of a shooting at a middle school there that left four students and a teacher dead.
In Parkland, Anishka Milleret pushed a wheelchair through the grass and up and down the small hill locks at Pine Trail Park to make sure her children were present at the city’s rally.
Her daughters, Dianna and Deanna Milleret, are 16-year-old twins, both sophomores at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. Deanna’s cerebral palsy requires her to be in a wheelchair much of the time. It was rough going on the park’s bumpy turf Saturday morning, but that didn’t stop them.
“They both have memories of that day, and they’re both dealing with it in their own ways,” Milleret said.
Along with the trauma of being in school during the shooting, the Millerets had the added anxiety of not being able to locate Deanna for hours afterward. She was evacuated along with hundreds of other students to a nearby hotel, but it took her mother hours to get to her.
“I’m hoping things can get back to normal at some point,” Milleret said. “I think they will. I hope so.”
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Protests against gun violence are taking place worldwide, some with just a handful of people and others with large crowds. Groups gathered outside the U.S. Embassies in Copenhagen, London and Stockholm; in London they shouted “gun control now.” In Tokyo, people gathered at Shibuya Crossing, holding signs with the names of people killed in mass shootings. In Frankfurt, a group walked down a street shouting, “No guns in our schools.” In Sydney, a group of children held posters.

Supporters of stricter gun control hold placards during a rally in solidarity with the March for Our Lives outside the U.S. Embassy in London on Saturday. The March for Our Lives movement held global protests for people worldwide to show solidarity with victims and survivors of U.S. gun violence. (Neil Hall/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Iris Diaz, a student at Stoneman Douglas, is on a long-planned trip to Prague. But she still planned to march.
“She’s with friends from school, and they’re going to march on Saturday down the streets of Prague,” said her mother, Audrey Diaz.
Counterprotests by supporters of gun rights are also expected in places including Boston, Boise, Salt Lake City and Valparaiso, Ind.
In Utah, the organizers of the pro-gun March Before Our Lives wrote on Facebook: “We march in support of the rights, lives, safety, and security of our children. We shall defend ourselves, our families, and those that cannot, or will not defend themselves, utilizing any means at our disposal, including our rights under the 2nd Amendment.”
In Boston, where a gun-control march took place on Boston Common, a group of about 25 counterprotesters gathered in front of the gold-domed State House to protest tougher gun laws.
“I think it’s a little ridiculous,” Robert Johnson, 21, from New York, said of the March for Our Lives event. “I’m here to support the Second Amendment. He wrapped himself in a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.
“After a tragedy like this one,” he said of the Parkland shooting, “everyone looks past the motives of the shooter and immediately focuses on guns. If you run over someone with a car, they don’t blame the car. But if someone is shot, they immediately blame the guns.”
In New York, a relatively small group compared with January’s Women’s March gathered to call for gun control near Central Park, where a stage was set for speakers.

Protesters raise signs during a March for Our Lives demonstration demanding gun control in New York City on Saturday. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Protesters were enthusiastic, though with fewer signs and no chants like other marches.
Steve Auerbach, a pediatrician, arrived early with a coalition of physicians from multiple doctors groups representing the city’s big hospitals to get a place front and center in front of the stage.
“I used to do ER work in Los Angeles and Atlanta and saw pediatric gun violence on a daily basis,” Auerbach said. “As a pediatrician and a father I find it appalling, the ease of access to guns.”
High school juniors Lindsy Voelker and Sophia Reynolds of Boiceville, New York, wore orange T-shirts that read “Enough” in multiple languages and featured tally marks to represent lives lost to gun violence. Voelker, 16, said no one at her school spoke about the Parkland shooting.
“I was angry, because it’s like 17 students were killed and then no one talks about; it’s crazy, we’re students. We should talk about it. Around our school, a lot of people own guns,” she said. “If we’re going to be the future of this country, we need to be taught about these things, so if we want to do anything about it, then we have the choice.”
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In Columbus, Ga., about a dozen organizers set up a stage in the city’s downtown, curious how many people would attend an anti-gun rally in the conservative city.
Six-year-old Vivian Anderson was ready to wave her hand-drawn sign — after she gets out of ballet class.
“This is a family thing,” said her mother, Alexa Johnson-Anderson. “The fact that my kids are having to do lockdown drills. They just know they have to be quiet. But as a parent, that should not be the norm. It’s something to think kids at this age have to go through that.”
Josephina Davis, a 15-year-old from Boston, was 7 when her brother, Johnny, was shot and killed. Davis, who boarded a bus to Washington at midnight, said she is protesting “to support other people who have lost people to gun violence.”
Olivia Gardner, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Colorado, helped plan a march in Denver. Gardner is from Aurora, Colo., where a gunman killed 12 people in a movie theater in 2012. She said organizers want to take their cause beyond the march and will lay out next steps, including a possible push for legislation that would allow guns to be seized from a person deemed by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others.
And in Parkland, Zayn Gregory, 13, and her 16-month-old sister, Raeviane, wore matching “MSD strong” T-shirts, as did their father, James Gregory.
“We brought the whole family from Boca [Raton], teens down to toddler,” James Gregory said as he hoisted Raeviane onto his shoulder. “It’s important for all of us to be here.”
Zayn said adults should pay attention to the teenagers.
“I have friends who knew some of the students who died. They are deeply affected, “ Zayn said. “We are speaking up so this never happens again. I think people need to listen to us. We can’t vote now, but we will soon.”
Donna Bryson in Denver, Diana Crandall in New York, Jim Lynn in Columbus, Ga., Lori Rosza in Parkland Fla., and Doug Struck in Boston contributed reporting
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