Americans decry gun violence, political inaction at nationwide rallies

"The cries of the nation's children can be heard across the world, and you choose to turn away."

WASHINGTON, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Large groups of Americans descended on Washington, D.C. and several other cities across the United States to decry rising gun violence while urging politicians to take action.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered under the Washington Monument at the National Mall in the afternoon, many with self-made banners that read "protect children not guns," "end gun violence" and "enough is enough" as they listened to speeches from shooting survivors and gun control activists.

"Everyday shootings are everyday problems," Trevon Bosley, whose brother Terrell was shot and killed in 2006, said from the podium. "The cries of the nation's children can be heard across the world, and you choose to turn away."

People gather during a rally decrying rising gun violence while urging politicians to take action in Washington, D.C., the United States, June 11, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Sweta Kumar, a mother from Falls Church, Virginia, stood among the crowd. She told Xinhua that the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead at an elementary school last month "hit me in a way that just shook me to the core."

"We all have kids," Kumar said, complaining that gun violence is "happening every day" and "everywhere" in the United States, and more disturbingly, "it's happening to our children."

"Schools are supposed to be a safe place for our children to go, and to have to put our kids on a school bus and be afraid that this could happen to us," she continued. "It's just absolutely ridiculous."

People gather during a rally decrying rising gun violence while urging politicians to take action in Washington, D.C., the United States, June 11, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Alex Spector, who's going to the 12th grade at a high school around the Baltimore area north of Washington, D.C. this year, described the Uvalde school shooting as a "big tragedy" and a "common occurrence in the United States" when speaking to Xinhua.

"Although it happens so often there still isn't any legislation or much that kind of change that happens in our country," he lamented. "The United States is the only country where this is a significant reoccurring problem."

Spector is a member of the so-called "lockdown generation" -- millions of American children and teenagers who regularly practice responding to a shooting at school, taught to "hide under desks, lock classrooms, turn the lights off."

Though Spector hasn't been directly impacted by gun violence, he acknowledged he doesn't feel safe all the time going to school. "There's always a disconnection between an individual and a mass shooting because it's not your life, but sometimes it gets really close to being my life," he said. "It's scary. It's scary to hear about."

People gather during a rally decrying rising gun violence while urging politicians to take action in Washington, D.C., the United States, June 11, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The Uvalde gunman used an AR-15-style rifle to carry out the rampage. A popular semiautomatic weapon among American gun owners, it was regularly used in many other mass shootings in the United States, prompting calls to ban the gun.

Kate Coho, who came to the demonstration in Washington, D.C. with Kumar, told Xinhua that she believes AR-15s "are military-style weapons that should be used in war and should not be accessible to everyday Americans," arguing that "nobody needs an AR-15. You do not need an assault rifle to go hunting."

Coho called out the National Rifle Association of America, an influential gun rights advocacy group that routinely spends money lobbying politicians at different levels against gun control measures despite most Americans supporting stricter laws on firearms.

"So in America, we have a very strong gun lobby," and "they speak a lot to our politicians, and they prevent safe gun laws from being passed," she elaborated. "Most Americans favor gun control legislation, and our politicians need to start listening to us -- the people -- and not the money that they get from the gun lobby."

People gather during a rally decrying rising gun violence while urging politicians to take action in Washington, D.C., the United States, June 11, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The rally came days after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a gun package that appeared unlikely to pass the evenly-divided Senate, whose members have engaged in separate talks to reach a compromise. It's unclear whether the negotiations will bear fruit as gun violence continues to wreak havoc on American lives.

According to the latest data from Gun Violence Archive, the United States has suffered 257 mass shootings over the past five months, with more than 19,300 lives lost to gun violence.