Thousands rally against guns

With tears and T-shirts, they devote their Mother's Day to demand "sensible gun laws.''

©New York Times

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 15, 2000

WASHINGTON -- With a rallying cry of "Enough is enough," hundreds of thousands of mothers and other gun-control advocates marched on the U.S. capital and in several cities around the country on Sunday, demanding "sensible gun laws," mourning the loss of children to gun violence and vowing to transform the politics of gun control.

Under a clear spring sky, the Million Mom March crowded the grassy expanse of the National Mall, cheering one speaker after another who assailed the National Rifle Association and its power over Congress. Entertainer Rosie O'Donnell and Hillary Rodham Clinton made appearances.

Many of the demonstrators wept at the stories of mothers who had lost their children, listening transfixed to the families shattered by shootings in places from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., to the Michigan elementary school where a 6-year-old girl was killed by a classmate.

"I come to you today, two days after what would have been her seventh birthday," said Veronica McQueen, the girl's mother. "I am a mom with a terrible tragedy, and I hope it never, ever happens again."

It was a Mother's Day of high emotion and powerful imagery, both here and in more than 60 other demonstrations around the country this weekend. Many in the crowd on the Mall on Sunday wore T-shirts with the photographs of relatives killed by guns. Judi Ellis of Toledo, Ohio, carried a placard that declared, "I march today to save a child tomorrow," with a picture of her son who was killed in 1995, one week before he was to have left for college.

Much of the crowd seemed to be the quintessential suburban mothers who are so intensely pursued in politics today, not touched by the issue of gun violence themselves but outraged at its toll.

The National Rifle Association and its allies on Sunday denounced the march's agenda, asserting that "registration and licensing schemes" were in fact "a controlled burn of the Second Amendment, and setting fire to freedom should never be the answer," in the words of Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the group.

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