WASHINGTON
A group of activists staged a rally in front of the White House on Monday to advocate for tougher gun laws.
Prompted by a deadly cinema shooting in 2012 in Colorado that killed 12 victims, We The People For Sensible Gun Laws has assembled every week on Pennsylvania Avenue to protest and read the names of victims who have died from mass shootings dating to 1982.
Dressed all in white and holding banners that read “Gun violence is a Public Health Issue” and “Change our Laws or Change Congress”, among other signs, the group of about 30 demonstrators called on Congress, and state and local officials to "recognize domestic violence is directly related to weak gun laws.”
Protestor Julie Huff said the group wants to raise its voice in a collective shout for as long as it can to remember the victims.
"Our voices are agents of change," she said. "We the people decide what the second amendment means and we insist on strong legislation around gun control."
The second amendment, which allows for gun ownership, opens the way for U.S. residents to own and carry guns with relative ease.
Joining demonstrators was Democratic congresswomen Eleanor Holmes Norton who said that in order to advance the group’s objective, it should protest the entire agenda on guns - including a ban on assault weapons and their related magazine clips.
"Don't sit on, don't stop coming on Mondays. They [officials who block gun control laws] are always after us but we are going after them, calling them out, sending all kinds of presence to their district, talking to them on radio and TV," she said.
Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said commonsense on guns was needed because there is no sense to "continue to say after every shooting, this should not have happened".
President Barack Obama had said last week that failure on his part to get "common sense gun safety laws" passed in the U.S. was the greatest frustration of his presidency.
Just hours after his remarks, a gunman opened fire at a cinema in Louisiana, killing two people and injuring several others before shooting himself.
In June, a gunman killed nine churchgoers during a Bible study at an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. That shooting was followed by another attack earlier this month in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where four military service members were murdered by a civilian.
We the People for Sensible Gun Laws told Anadolu Agency that it estimated approximately 1,000 victims were killed in mass shootings since 1982 - the earliest year mass shootings were tracked.
"Our count is 81 mass shootings have occurred since 1982," said a member of the group.
The group follows the FBI's description of mass shooting in which four or more victims are killed, not including the perpetrator.
Thirty-one percent of adults in the U.S. in 2014, reported they had a firearm in their homes, according to the National Science Foundation.
Economist Richard Florida released a survey in 2011 in which he found states with tighter gun control laws appeared to have fewer gun-related deaths.
