Thousands of students, parents and activists are expected to march on Washington on Saturday as part of an historic protest against gun violence, an event spearheaded by the teen survivors of the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead.Fed up with the routineness of lockdown drills, active shooter threats and older generations’ failure to ensure their safety, high school students across the country have emerged as agents of change in the wake of the Parkland shooting.Survivors planned the “March For Our Lives” from their parents’ living rooms just days after they saw their friends gunned down in classrooms and hallways by a 19-year-old former student.Though the march on Washington is expected to be the biggest, there are 836 “sibling marches” planned for the same day. Local activists have organized solidarity protests in their communities across the U.S and beyond, from New Delhi, India, to Accra, Ghana and Hanoi, Vietnam, to Bucharest, Romania.In the U.S., student organizers behind the principal march in D.C have also drawn up a list of demands for Congress.They’re seeking a ban on assault weapons, “like the ones used in Las Vegas, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Aurora, Sandy Hook, and most recently to kill 17 innocent people and injure more than a dozen others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.” They’re also asking lawmakers to ban high-capacity magazines, which mass shooters have used in the past to unleash a deadly stream of bullets.“Limiting the number of bullets a gun can discharge at one time will at least force any shooter to stop and reload, giving children a chance to escape,” the organizers wrote online. Finally, they’re asking Congress to tighten up background check laws, to prevent “dangerous people who shouldn’t be allowed to purchase firearms to slip through the cracks and buy guns online or at gun shows.”The D.C. march, which kicks off at noon, is also expected to be a star-studded event, featuring appearances from Common, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ariana Grande, and Miley Cyrus, among others.“This is the reality we face as young people in America today: the constant fear of being gunned down in the places we should feel the most secure,” wrote Emma Gonzalez, a high school senior from Marjory Stoneman Douglas who survived the mass shooting, in a recent op-ed for Teen Vogue. “We have grown up in this country and watched violence unfold to no resolution. We have watched people with the power and authority to make changes fail to do so.”Cover image: LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 22: Young activists paint signs to be carried at the upcoming March for Our Lives Los Angeles on March 22, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. More than 500,000 are expected to march for gun control at rallies nationwide on March 24. The marches have been organized by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed in a mass shooting February 14. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Image
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