Protesters on both sides of the U.S. gun debate took to the streets Saturday outside the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Dallas after the latest in a long series of mass shootings put the issue back in the spotlight.
Across the street from the convention center where President Donald Trump addressed NRA members Friday, a “Rally4Reform” drew about 200 demonstrators demanding tighter restrictions on firearms sales. Many were dressed in the orange that has become the color of the gun control movement.
Parkland mural
They watched as Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son, Joaquin, was killed in the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, spray painted a mural of kids running and a backpack-wearing student in a rifle’s crosshairs.
Many flinched and some sobbed as he hit the wall with a hammer to simulate the sound of gunfire.
“You were in the wrong room yesterday,” Oliver said of Trump, who enthusiastically embraced the NRA on Friday. “You should be talking to the people we are now.”
