Brendan Orsillo

50,000 thousand people across the Pacific Northwest participated in the March for Our Lives in Seattle On Saturday, March 24, 2018.Marchers walked from Cal Anderson park to the Seattle Center. The march was to promote ‘common sense’ gun laws and in remembrance of the Parkland, Florida massacre that left 17 high schoolers dead.
There were a multitude of reasons why people attended the march. Many protesters wanted stricter gun laws and the removal of assault weapons from civilians. Other demonstrators attended to simply show their support for the survivors and victims of gun violence.

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According to the Seattle Times, the organisers of the event included Katalia Alexander, Catherine Zhu, Rhiannon Rasaretnam, Emilia Allard, and Asher Maria, all high school students in the area. Speakers included, Rainier High School Student Elijah Lewis and Governor Jay Inslee.

However, there were some counter protesters. Here is an interview by Crosscut from a counter protester named Michaela, who stated “I consider myself a gun-control advocate.” She supports banning bump stocks, but said the March For Our Lives activists who want a ban on assault weapons “don’t know what they’re standing for.” She said semi-automatic rifles “essentially work the same way as a pistol; you fire it once and it goes off.”
Samantha Garcia, a student at Mountlake Terrace High School said at the Terrace Walkout on March 10th: “I feel like there needs to be a limitation on the automatic rifles. I do understand that guns are used for self-protection but we’ve seen time and time again where our policies now have not been working so we definitely need harsher gun legislation in the US right now.”