Hundreds of anti-gun violence rallies planned this weekend

This weekend, hundreds of anti-gun violence demonstrations are planned across the United States, Canada and Europe.

March for Our Lives, the student-led group that was formed in the wake of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, is leading the worldwide organising of demonstrations, which as of 8 June number more than 450 across the US and Canada, as well as Europe in Valencia, Rome, Geneva, Zurich, and Munich.

"We're seeing what we saw in 2018. People are just fed up," Elena Perez, a New Jersey-based policy associate with March for Our Lives, told The New Arab. She is currently in Washington, DC, where she has been meeting with dozens of lawmakers from both parties.

"They don't want to see countless Americans dying of gun violence. Enough is enough. This is a continuous fight. We're seeing people join who have never joined before. It's important to have solidarity with other countries," Perez added.

These upcoming demonstrations, sparked by the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 schoolchildren and two adults, appears to have hit a nerve in a country where mass shootings are so commonplace that they rarely make headline news.

Moreover, the Uvalde school shooting came on the heels of a supermarket shooting in Buffalo in upstate New York. In both cases, people were going about their everyday lives, assuming they were safe in a public space.

According to the research organisation Gun Violence Archive, there are approximately 385 mass shootings in the United States per year, defined as having at least four victims. No country other comes close to having these numbers.

Mass shootings account for only a small proportion of gun deaths in the US, which number around 15,000 per year, mainly affecting lower income individuals.

Perez says she's mindful of the discrepancy in media coverage between school shootings and daily street shootings, which are more prevalent but do not get the same attention. She hopes the upcoming demonstrations can elevate all voices that are affected by gun violence.

The demonstrations map and schedules, which can be found at the March for Our Lives website, is growing by the day. It could be the biggest anti-gun violence organised gathering world history.