CBS/ AP March 24, 2018, 10:12 AM
Last Updated Mar 24, 2018 10:36 AM EDT
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Thousands are gathering in Washington, D.C., today for a protest that organizers claim will be a defining moment in the long-simmering national debate over gun-control legislation. Organizers of the March for Our Lives rally are hoping to draw 500,000 protesters in Washington today. According to their website, 842 March for Our Lives events are planned around the world.
In Washington, the march event is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m ET. CBS News will provide a live stream of the events happening in Washington, and will be covering events at other locations.
The protesters, many of them high school students, claim that the youth leadership of this initiative is what will set it apart from previous attempts to enact stronger gun-control legislation.
Follow a live blog of updates from March for Our Lives below:
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20,000 expected at Florida anti-gun protest
11:00 a.m. ET: More than 20,000 people are expected at the March for Our Lives rally nearest the Florida school where last month’s deadly shooting occurred. Police presence was heavy early Saturday at a park near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High as organizers set up and demonstrators streamed in.
Eighteen-year-old Sabrine Brismeur and 17-year-old Eden Kinlock came from schools 20 miles away to pass out water. Kinlock said that may seem “like a small thing but it helps in the bigger picture.”
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White House releases statement on march
10:30 a.m. ET: “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters says in a statement.
“Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President’s, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS and STOP School Violence Acts, and signed them into law,” the statement says. “Additionally, on Friday, the Department of Justice issued the rule to ban bump stocks following through on the President’s commitment to ban devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”
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Rally outside U.S. Embassy in London
9:30 a.m. ET: Dozens of protesters are rallying outside the U.S. Embassy in London in solidarity with the “March for Our Lives” protest against gun violence. Students, families with children and other protesters raised placards reading “Protect kids not guns,” ”Never again,” and “Enough is enough” Saturday outside the new embassy building in south London.
Amnesty International U.K.’s director Kate Allen referred to the 1996 school killings at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland, in which 16 students and a teacher were killed.
“After our own school shooting at Dunblane, new gun ownership laws were introduced in Britain and that’s exactly what’s needed in the United States, where gun deaths are a national tragedy,” she said.
