Mass shootings intensify reform efforts at grassroots level

With protests planned for Saturday after the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Buffalo, New York, gun control advocates hope to intensify pressure on Congress to pass laws and additional funding for research to help curb the growing violence.

And they say they're prepared to use philanthropic money and their own fundraising to support their advocacy until public attention forces meaningful changes.

Noah Lumbantobing, a spokesman for March for Our Lives, says he's seen the strategy succeed before.

After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, that killed 17, students formed the anti-gun violence group and led mass protests across the country. In response, former President Donald Trump's administration banned bump stocks, which was the accessory a shooter used to kill scores at a country music festival in Las Vegas the previous year.

“Trump is not our friend — we know that,” Lumbantobing said, speaking through the din of protests outside the National Rifle Association convention in Houston last month. “He’s not our political ally, but the temperature in the country got so high he couldn’t ignore us.”

This time, March for Our Lives and other gun control groups plan to mobilize supporters to push Congress to require universal background checks, pass red flag laws allowing guns to be confiscated in certain cases and raise the age limit to buy certain guns.

All that said, they recognize that political leaders have not delivered meaningful action on gun control in America.

“If it wasn’t for the movement, I would not have any faith in politicians,” Lumbantobing, 26, who is based in New York, told The Associated Press. “But given that the movement is so strong and it’s so clear that it is so strong, I think something will happen.”

In a speech...