<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Courtesy of the Washington Post at:</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; "><a href="http://tinyurl.com/at52wo5">http://tinyurl.com/at52wo5</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; "> </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">-------------------------------------<br><br><img src="cid:CA85A9DF-D52B-401B-A4E9-E63E085FF8E3" id="CA85A9DF-D52B-401B-A4E9-E63E085FF8E3" width="640" height="398"></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><h1 property="dc.title" style="font-family: Times; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">Thousands join march for gun control in Washington; call for bans, background checks</h1></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">WASHINGTON — Thousands of people, many holding signs with names of gun violence victims and messages such as “Ban Assault Weapons Now,” joined a rally for gun control on Saturday, marching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Leading the crowd were marchers with “We Are Sandy Hook” signs, paying tribute to victims of the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray and other city officials marched alongside them. The crowd stretched for at least two blocks along Constitution Avenue.</span></div><div><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Participants held signs reading “Gun Control Now,” ‘’Stop NRA” and “What Would Jesus Pack?” among other messages. Other signs were simple and white, with the names of victims of gun violence.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">About 100 residents from Newtown, where a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers, traveled to Washington together, organizers said.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Participant Kara Baekey from nearby Norwalk, Conn., said that when she heard about the Newtown shooting, she immediately thought of her two young children. She said she decided she must take action, and that’s why she traveled to Washington for the march.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I wanted to make sure this never happens at my kids’ school or any other school,” Baekey said. “It just can’t happen again.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Once the crowd arrived at the monument, speakers called for a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition and for universal background checks on gun sales.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the crowd it’s not about taking away Second Amendment gun rights, but about gun safety and saving lives. He said he and President Barack Obama would do everything they could to enact gun control policies.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“This is about trying to create a climate in which our children can grow up free of fear,” Duncan said. “This march is a starting point; it is not an ending point ... We must act, we must act, we must act.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non-voting representative in Congress, said the gun lobby can be stopped, and the crowd chanted back, “Yes, we can.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We are all culpable if we do nothing now,” Norton said</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">James Agenbroad, 78, of Garrett Park, Md., carried a handwritten sign on cardboard that read “Repeal the 2nd Amendment.” He called it the only way to stop mass killings because he thinks the Supreme Court will strike down any other restrictions on guns.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“You can repeal it,” he said. “We repealed prohibition.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Molly Smith, the artistic director of Washington’s Arena Stage, and her partner organized the march. Organizers said that in addition to the 100 people from Newtown, buses of participants traveled from New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia. Others flew in from Seattle, San Francisco and Alaska, they said.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">While she’s never organized a political march before, Smith said she was compelled to press for a change in the law. The march organizers support Obama’s call for gun control measures. They also want lawmakers to require gun safety training for all buyers of firearms.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“With the drum roll, the consistency of the mass murders and the shock of it, it is always something that is moving and devastating to me. And then, it’s as if I move on,” Smith said. “And in this moment, I can’t move on. I can’t move on.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I think it’s because it was children, babies,” she said. “I was horrified by it.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After the Connecticut shootings, Smith began organizing on Facebook. The group One Million Moms for Gun Control, the Washington National Cathedral and two other churches eventually signed on to co-sponsor the march. Organizers have raised more than $50,000 online to pay for equipment and fees to stage the rally, Smith said.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Lawmakers from the District of Columbia and Maryland rallied the crowd, along with Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund and Colin Goddard, a survivor from the Virginia Tech massacre.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Goddard said he was shot four times at Virginia Tech and is motivated to keep fighting for gun control because what happened to him keeps happening — and nothing’s been done to stop it.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We are Americans,” he said, drawing big cheers. “We have overcome difficulties when we realize we are better than this.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Smith said she supports a comprehensive look at mental health and violence in video games and films. But she said the mass killings at Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., all began with guns.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The issue is guns. The Second Amendment gives us the right to own guns, but it’s not the right to own any gun,” she said. “These are assault weapons, made for killing people.”</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">March on Washington for Gun Control: </span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.guncontrolmarch.com/">http://www.guncontrolmarch.com/</a></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">-------------------------------------</span></p></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div>Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .</div><div><br></div><div>"Moscow Cares"</div><div><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.com">http://www.MoscowCares.com</a></div><div> </div><div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div><br></div><div>"<span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">There's room at the top they are telling you still</span><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">But first you must learn how to smile as you kill </span><br style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><span style="font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">If you want to be like the folks on the hill."</span></div><div><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);">- John Lennon<br></span></font><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>