“Where's your humanity?” hundreds rally in Los Angeles against gun violence

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – - everal hundred demonstrators marched in Los Angeles, California and across the country, calling on lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at curbing gun violence following last month's massacre at a Texas elementary school.

Sixteen-year-old Dylan Dricon says gun violence has impacted not only his way of living, but the way he learns in school.

“I'm tired of it, tired of going to school every day, scared that I'm going to lose my friends, myself. Everyone in my school, we all know how to protect ourselves against people who might shoot up the school. I'm tired of it.”

A gunman in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24, 10 days after another gunman murdered 10 Black people in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a racist attack.

Jose Sanchez rallied holding the hand of his 9-year-old son. Sanchez said he took the streets during a summer heat wave in Los Angeles to show his son that there is hope.

“I speak for the voiceless, you know, several kids didn't get that opportunity. You know, parents have lost and we're still in this grieving process as a nation,” said Sanchez. “I want to show my kids, you know, we can do whatever it takes to make change so that he has a better future.”

The latest mass shootings have added new urgency to the country's ongoing debate over gun violence, though the prospects for federal legislation remain uncertain.

Protester Tara Cox says she’s growing impatient about the inaction from the government.

“Where's your humanity? If 19 children killed doesn't move you, you have no humanity left.”

March for Our Lives (MFOL), the gun safety group founded by student survivors of the 2018 massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school, said it has planned more than 450 rallies for Saturday, including in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.