March For Our Lives Event For Gun Reform June 11 In Virginia

VIRGINIA — Supporters of March for Our Lives, founded in 2018 by survivors of the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre, are bringing their demonstration in support of gun law reform back to the nation’s capital Saturday, June 11.

Hundreds of sister marches will be held in cities across America, including several locations in Virginia.

March for Our Lives events will take place in the following cities in the state on these dates and times:

Saturday, June 11, 2022 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM ET

• World Trade Center, 101 W Main St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Saturday, June 11, 2022 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM ET

• World Trade Center, 101 W Main St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Saturday, June 11, 2022 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM ET

• VA Tech Campus, 135 College Ave, Blacksburg, VA 24060

The demonstrations come after the latest school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 that resulted in a profound loss of lives.

Nineteen children between the ages of 9 and 11, and two of their teachers, were killed inside a fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary as law enforcement officers waited for more than an hour outside, according to reports. Justice Department investigators are expected to focus their probe on police response to the shooting.

March for Our Lives organizers’ immediate goal is to pressure elected officials to “step up and pass universal background checks” in the U.S. Senate. The House approved a bipartisan background check bill in 2019, but it has since languished in the Senate.

One day after the Uvalde school shooting, Democratic U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia lamented the fact that Congress failed to act in the wake of Virginia Tech—which was the most deadly shooting in American history at the time.

Kaine is calling for sweeping gun reform and said Congress must act once and for all. Doing nothing is no longer an option, he said.

“I feel like I'm back in April of 2007, experiencing those emotions for the first time… My emotional reaction – that's kind of a PTSD thing – is not just because of the shootings, not just because of the deaths, not just because of the promising lives cut short. It is compounded by a realization that here in this body we've done nothing. It would be bad enough to experience the violence and be reminded of that most painful time in my life. But to experience it as a U.S. Senator, as a member of a body, and to say well, ‘what have we done?’" Kaine said.

"We didn't do anything at the federal level after Virginia Tech, and we didn't do anything after Pulse, and we didn't do anything after Las Vegas, and we didn't do anything after Sandy Hook, and we didn't do anything after one tragedy after the next. And that compounds, and in some ways, that is the thing that makes the emotional reaction a reaction that is as fresh today as it was in April of 2007. It's a wound that can't heal until we do something to heal the injury, to heal the problem," he continued.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Marker Warner of Virginia told PBS that he supports placing limits on the number of handguns that can be purchased per month and improving reporting of lost or stolen firearms. He also said he supports establishing a "federal extreme risk protection order process" to temporarily remove firearms from high-risk people.

In a prime-time address Thursday, President Joe Biden outlined a far more ambitious and politically difficult proposal that includes expanded background checks. He also called for the restoration of a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, one he helped pass as a senator in 1994 and that Congress allowed to sunset in 2004.

Failing that, Congress should at least find a way to keep those military-style weapons out of the hands of those with mental health issues, or raise the minimum age to buy them from 18 to 21, Biden said.

• Related: ‘How Much More Carnage?’ Biden Asks In Appeal For Tougher Gun Laws

“How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden said. “Don’t tell me raising the age won’t make a difference.”

He called on Congress to end "outrageous" protections for gun manufacturers, which severely limit their liability over how their firearms are used, comparing it to the tobacco industry, which has faced repeated litigation over its products' role in causing cancer and other diseases.

"Imagine if the tobacco industry had been immune from being sued, where we'd be today," Biden said.

If Congress doesn’t act, voters should show their outrage and turn gun control into a bellwether issue in November’s midterm elections, Biden said.

A secondary goal for March for Our Lives organizers is to push young voters to the polls in the November midterm elections, a strategy that worked in the 2018 midterms. Its 2018 march, held just over a month after the Parkland massacre when anti-gun fervor was high, fueled a 47 percent increase in young voter turnout from the 2014 midterms.

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It was the highest youth vote turnout ever, increasing in every state, according to a Tufts University analysis. In a first, Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-reform lobbying group backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, outspent the National Rifle Association in federal elections, according to The Trace, a news organization that investigates gun violence.

More than two dozen NRA-backed candidates lost their House seats, and the new Democratic majority included at least 17 newly elected representatives who favor stricter gun laws, according to CNBC.

March for Our Lives said voters made clear in 2018 “the status quo was no longer acceptable” by kicking a record number of NRA-backed candidates out of federal and state policymaking offices.

The Uvalde school shooting was the 27th of 2022, according to Education Week, an independent news organization that covers K-12 education and has been tracking school shootings since 2018. In that time, 88 people have been killed and 229 others have been injured in 119 school shootings.

Gun violence overall has spiked to the point that it’s a public health crisis, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which earlier this year reported a near-record-high number of gun-related deaths in the United States in 2020.

An analysis of that data shows firearms were the leading cause of death among children for the first time in 2020.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.