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What Comes After The March For Our Lives?

Bill Rinehart
/
WVXU
People gathered in Downtown Cincinnati Saturday, March 24, for the local version of the national March For Our Lives movement.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched on Washington and around the country to demand stricter gun control this weekend.

But that’s just the first step, David Hogg, a survivor of the February Parkland, Florida school shooting, told NPR Monday.

The students are already planning another school walkout on April 20, and on April 7, they’re calling for every member of Congress to hold a town hall.

“If your local legislator refuses to come for whatever reason, simply invite their opponent,” Hogg told us. “It’s as simple as that.”

The students-turned-activists have set up a website, thetownhallproject.com, to organize the effort.

That electoral activism is where it’s really going to make a difference, according to Lois Beckett, a reporter for The Guardian who covers gun policy. In 1999, the Million Mom March brought hundreds of thousands of people to Washington, but didn’t make a difference in the elections.

“What really matters is what happens in the 2018 midterms,” Beckett said. “If pro-gun lawmakers are voted out because of the actions of students then this march will have made a big difference.”

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org.