Protesters staged a "die-in" in Washington on Tuesday to commemorate the second anniversary of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The demonstration was a call for legislation to prevent gun violence, The Hill reports.
The demonstration was led by an activist group that stages "die-ins" to call attention to deadly violence and protest the "lethal legislative inaction" that allows it to continue. Protesters at the die-in on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., laid on the ground for 12 minutes, or 720 seconds, to represent the number of victims who have died in mass shootings in the last two years, since a gunman killed 49 people at Pulse on June 12, 2016. Other demonstrators staged die-ins around the country, including outside President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
"I'm here for Pulse, I'm here for Stoneman Douglas, I'm here for every single mass shooting since, and every single mass shooting that is going to continue until we do something," said Matt Deitsch, a survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Deitsch and other activists, including other Parkland survivors who co-founded the March For Our Lives movement, have begun using die-ins to advocate for gun control and legislation like universal background checks. "If [lawmakers] can sell themselves out with constituents dying, that's pretty sad and they're cowards," said Nurah Abdulhaqq, a founder of the National Die-In movement. Read more at The Hill.
-
August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Trump lambasts crime, but his administration is cutting gun violence preventionThe Explainer The DOJ has canceled at least $500 million in public safety grants
-
Aimee Betro: the Wisconsin woman who came to Birmingham to killIn the Spotlight US hitwoman wore a niqab in online lover's revenge plot
-
Australian woman found guilty of mushroom murdersspeed read Erin Patterson murdered three of her ex-husband's relatives by serving them toxic death cap mushrooms
-
Combs convicted on 2 of 5 charges, denied bailSpeed Read Sean 'Diddy' Combs was acquitted of the more serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking
-
Sniper kills 2 Idaho firefighters in ambushSpeed Read A man started a wildfire, then fired a rifle at first responders when they arrived
-
Weinstein convicted of sex crime in retrialSpeed Read The New York jury delivered a mixed and partial verdict at the disgraced Hollywood producer's retrial
-
'King of the Hill' actor shot dead outside homespeed read Jonathan Joss was fatally shot by a neighbor who was 'yelling violent homophobic slurs,' says his husband
-
DOJ, Boulder police outline attacker's confessionspeed read Mohamed Sabry Soliman planned the attack for a year and 'wanted them all to die'
