Edmonton joins global campaign March for Our Lives
A crowd rallying for gun control reform at the Alberta Legislature was one of hundreds around the world on Saturday.
March for Our Lives protests spanned the United States and were held in at least eight Canadian cities.
Abbey Axelsson, the 19-year-old student organizer behind Edmonton's rally, said the protests delivered a message to politicians: "We're watching you. We see that you are letting children die because you want to keep your guns."
The global protests were summoned by survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting Feb. 14, with the goal of highlighting the need for stricter gun control laws.
Local and global demonstrators called on U.S. Congress to ban assault weapons, require universal background checks for gun sales and give courts the authority to take firearms away from potentially violent people.
"Obviously the politicians have completely dropped the ball in this regard and they are not going to do anything as of right now," Axelsson said. "They're not trying to protect the lives of students and so the students have to take control."
Several young people joined Saturday's rally in Edmonton, putting international pressure on U.S. politicians to change their perspective on the right to bear arms.
"That pressure is part of what's going to cause them to hopefully change what they're doing," Axelsson said, highlighting the significance of the protests held outside of the United States.
'It just keeps happening'
Axelsson acknowledged that gun violence in Canada isn't as severe as it is in the U.S., but said it still affects Canadians.
Melissa Hennig of Devon, Alta. is one of those Canadians. She survived the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017, and spoke at Saturday's rally.
"There were a lot of Canadians there and we lost four of them, so I wanted to make sure that people don't forget," Hennig said.
But Hennig couldn't forget even if she wanted to. She said the stream of mass shootings in the United States serves as a constant reminder of the night when a gunman killed 58 people at a concert.
"It just keeps happening," Hennig said. "So we had Vegas and before we could even catch our breath and get our mind wrapped around what actually happened, the Texas church shooting happened and it just brought it all back to that day."
Six months later, Hennig said she's still wondering why she survived and others didn't.
"That night we felt complete and utter terror. Now, obviously you have relief that you got out but there's a tremendous amount of guilt for not being able to help people more, for just surviving," she said. "That's sort of a daily struggle now."
Hennig called for restrictions on access to guns so other people don't have to experience what she went through — or worse. Seventeen students died in the shooting in Parkland, Fla. — an event that demonstrators stressed should never happen again.
While demonstrators in Edmonton had a strong message for politicians, they also had one for Parkland students: "We're with you. We back you 100 per cent," Axelsson said.
