Bay Area students lead March for Our Lives rallies for gun reforms

Bay Area teens lead March for Our Lives protests against gun violence

Teenagers around the Bay Area are leading March for Our Lives protests against gun violence Saturday.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Teenagers all over the Bay Area organized rallies Saturday for gun reform and tighter national gun control policies.

Events were set to happen in eight different locations, including Walnut Creek, Redwood City, San Francisco and Sonoma.

Lucy Goetz, a 17-year-old high school student organizer from Concord, told KTVU it is important that students get involved.

"It's such a relevant timely cause," said Goetz. "Right now, we (students) are the ones that (gun violence) is affecting. We are the ones afraid of mass shootings."

The Bay Area youth joined thousands of people around the nation as a part of the second March for Our Lives rally.

In Washington D.C. alone, organizers expected to see around 50,000 demonstrators.

That’s far less than the original 2018 march, which filled downtown Washington with more than 200,000 people. This time, organizers are focusing on holding smaller marches at an estimated 300 locations.

The youth-led March For Our Lives movement was spurred by Feb. 14, 2018, killings of 14 students and three staff members by a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The movement successfully pressured the Republican-dominated Florida state government to enact sweeping gun control reforms.

The group did not match the Florida results at the national level but has persisted in advocating for gun restrictions since then, as well as participating in voter registration drives.

Goetz hoped that the demonstrations this time around would move elected officials to make assault weapons harder to obtain.

"I know in California, we do have a lot of laws in place to ensure background checks, and it's much more difficult," said Goetz. "But there needs to be a national policy that really ensures that a 19-year-old can't walk into a store and walk out with an AR (assault rifle) in a matter of minutes."

Associated Press contributed to the article.