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HOUSTON - "Protect children, not guns!" Crowds of protesters crying for gun control shouted outside the convention of the well-known gun rights lobby group National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday in downtown Houston, Texas.
The first day of the NRA annual meeting met with angry demonstrations just three days after the Uvalde school shooting claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers merely 300 miles (about 483 km) away.
The "Don't Look Away Rally" is to "demand swift and strong action against the gun violence that continues to devastate our neighbourhoods, schools, and families," the Harris County Democratic Party, one of the organizers, said in a statement.
"It was really heartbreaking... those children who literally have yet to even know what they wanna do, discover their talents, discover their hobbies in the future...They're supposed to learn who they are and they got that taken away from them," Olivia Otou-Branckeart, an 18-year-old high school senior, told Xinhua at the rally.
"I think they (school shootings will) continue to happen because nobody does anything about it. Everybody's buried their heads in the sand, and they do believe for some reason that owning a gun expresses freedom," Jim Hunnicutt, a 66-year-old protester who once worked in the transportation industry, told Xinhua.
"This shouldn't be happening. It doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. Just America," he said. "Right now, America has 120 guns for every 100 citizens. It's the largest cache of weapons in the world. And that has to change."