Thousands to rally in D.C. for gun safety 

Thousands of young people are set to descend on Washington, D.C., on Saturday to urge Congress to pass stricter gun laws as bipartisan negotiators work to reach a deal following a spate of recent mass shootings.

The March for Our Lives demonstration will take place less than a month after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 Black people were gunned down in a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. Similar marches are set to be held in more than 450 cities in the U.S. and around the world on Saturday.

In an exclusive interview with The Hill, Yolanda Renee King, the 13-year-old granddaughter of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. who will give one of the keynote speeches at this weekend’s Washington rally, said youth activists are frustrated after several years of demonstrating and countless deaths.

March for Our Lives was founded after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, drawing more than a million participants that March to its first demonstration in Washington and sister events around the country.

“We’re all coming together because this is unacceptable, and we are demanding that our politicians ban the big rifle assault weapons,” King said. “We have to reduce kids’ anxiety of just going to school and reduce people who look like me’s anxiety to go to the grocery store.”

Read the full article on The Hill.