Faces of Denver’s March for Our Lives

Many among the thousands of people who attended Denver’s March for Our Lives event on Saturday used signs to convey a variety of stories and messages. Here are just a few:

Haylee LaRue, 16, who participated in a national school walkout over gun violence at Thornton High School earlier this month, attended Saturday’s march with her family. “We shouldn’t have to send our parents text messages in the morning saying I love you because we don’t know if we’ll make it home,” she said. “We shouldn’t be scared to go to school.”

Haylee’s younger sister, 4-year-old Sariah LaRue (second from left), brought a sign that read “I’m little and I’m mad.” The girls’ mother, Kelly LaRue (not pictured), said their family came downtown from Commerce City because she is raising her children to have a voice.

Bill Selby (background), a former military weapons designer and minister who conducted the funeral for Columbine High School shooting victim Lauren Townsend, carried a sign that read, “Sorry, kids. We adults screwed up. You take it from here. We’re with you.” “We did not design weapons of war for the home,” Selby said Saturday. “There’s hope in these kids. Thank God.”

The Parkland shooting was top of mind for Qynn Schumer, who attended the Denver march and rally to honor Scott Beigel, a teacher who was among those killed at the Florida high school and who Schumer called a dear friend. “He died a hero, and he shouldn’t have,” Schumer said. “He shouldn’t have been taken away with an AR-15.”

Julia Eiken, 18, registered to vote at Denver’s march and rally. She said gun reform will be a huge issue for her as she votes for the first time. “Its so ridiculous I should have to live in fear as I further my education,” the Chatfield High School student said.

Former teacher Mary Kaupas, 87, of Boulder, joined her her granddaughter Brooke Stamper during Saturday’s protest. As a former teacher, Kaupas said she thinks arming teachers would jeopardize children’s safety. As a grandmother, she said, she’d liked to see assault rifles banned. “My husband and son hunted,” Kaupus said. “We just don’t need guns of war. Hunting guns are fine, but not guns of war.”

Margaret Spring (left) and her husband, Chris Baker, borrowed a little basketball terminology to express their feelings about guns, wearing shirts that collectively read, “Shoot free throws, not firearms.” Both support the idea of stricter gun ownership regulations as well as nation gun buyback program. “It should be just as hard to buy a gun as it is to buy a house,” Baker said.

A group of friends who attend Standley Lake High School in Jefferson County brought signs expressing a range of emotions about gun violence in schools. “When teachers sign up to be teachers they don’t sign up to shoot people who might hurt their students, they sign up to teach the next generation,” said 16-year-old Hadley Vogler (third from left).

Jane Templeton of Denver (second from left) and several neighbors were representing grandparents who are concerned about gun violence in schools. “When we were in school we practiced duck and cover because the atomic bombs were coming, but kids now have it much worse because they know what’s coming,” Templeton said.

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