Hundreds in Olympia ‘March for Our Lives’ Saturday to call for gun control legislation
Hundreds rallied in Olympia Saturday during a “March for Our Lives” event to call on lawmakers to pass gun safety legislation.
Olympia Indivisible organized the 90-minute march in which participants looped around Tivoli Fountain on the Capitol Campus before making several loops down and around Capitol Way.
“I’m here because I think it is crucial and critical that our elected representatives understand that the vast majority of Americans want an end to gun violence,” Lisa Ornstein, co-founder of Olympia Indivisible, told McClatchy. “They want action, not thoughts and prayers. They want meaningful, impactful legislation that will save lives and create gun safety where there is so very little.”
Other organizations such as Grey Resistance Indivisible, a senior citizen group, and the Olympia High School Feminism Club participated in the rally and march as well. The Feminism Club has led two recent school walk-outs in Olympia, one against gun violence and one after the draft of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked.
Bailey Howard, a student at Bonney Lake High School, told McClatchy she was in Olympia for the march because her school went into lockdown on Tuesday after she said a man was allegedly seen with a gun.
“I think it was just a really big reality check for all of us,” she said. “I was texting my mom from under my desk at school and she raced as fast as she could to the school to see what was going on. Our first thought was that there could have been an active shooter, and that wasn’t a strange, out-of-pocket thought.”
Saturday’s march was part of a nationwide call to action that included more than 400 March for Our Lives events all over the U.S. Olympia was one of 14 cities in Washington that participated in the march. The marches were inspired by a recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 21, among other recent mass shootings.
This story was originally published June 11, 2022 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Hundreds in Olympia ‘March for Our Lives’ Saturday to call for gun control legislation."
