Crowds gather for largest US gun control protest in a generation

Bundled against the cold but fired up with passion after a Florida high school massacre, crowds gathered in Washington today for what is expected to be the biggest US gun control protest in a generation, with hundreds of thousands attending.

The student-organized protest is to feature rallies from coast to coast, with the main event in Washington within sight of the US Capitol -- whose lawmakers the protesters hope to influence.

"Let our votes be our best weaponry," said one of the many signs carried by early protesters, who arrived more than three hours before the event's official mid-day start.

Thousands of demonstrators poured out of the city's subway and had already filled Constitution Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, which links the White House with the Capitol, making it difficult to get close to the main stage.

The area was closed to traffic in order to hold the half-million protesters squeezing into streets flanked by giant video screens proclaiming their slogan, "March for Our Lives."
"Our main message is we are not going to be quiet, we will keep fighting. I don't care how much money you have, your money can't drown out the sounds of our voices. We will be voting in 2020. Our generation wants change."
Other marchers carried homemade signs reading: "My dress code is stricter than our gun laws," "Your right to bear arms doesn't override my right to stay alive," and "Your silence leads to violence."
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, where 20 elementary school children were shot dead in 2012, told AFP the student-led movement needs to become an "electoral force, and this march may be the beginning of that."