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.
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.