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ABC News
ABC News
National
By Lily Mayers

'Kids should feel safe at school': Australian students call for US gun control

Children march in Sydney in solidarity with American students, calling on US politicians to tighten gun laws.

They may be halfway across the world from the gun violence happening in American schools, but a group of Sydney students are passionate about tighter gun control in the United States.

"We can't just sit in our living room and grumble about stuff, we have to get out there and do it and we think that's very important," said one student from Dulwich Hill Primary School.

She was part one of more than 100 adults, children and students who gathered for the March for Our Lives protest in Hyde Park on Saturday, in response to the 17 students and teachers killed in the high school shooting at Parkland, Florida last month.

Similar rallies are taking place internationally.

In Sydney, speakers young and old pleaded to American politicians to restrict gun ownership.

Josh Baffo, nine, was just four years old and at pre-school in New York when he experienced his first shooting drill.

"The teachers turned off the lights and told us to hide in our lockers and not make a sound ... I was really scared," Josh said.

"They told us it was a lockdown drill that we practice in case somebody comes and tries to shoot us."

As well as a minute's silence for the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, 17 children read the names and ages of those who died.

The Dulwich Hill Primary School group said it had already written to US President Donald Trump.

"We explained our reasons and that he should change the laws to make gun control," one student said.

"Kids should be able to go to school and feel safe," their teacher, Ms Campbell said.

Olivia Martin, a Year 9 student from St Catherine's School in Waverley, said she was participating in the rally to show solidarity for the students campaigning against gun violence in Florida.

"A person's right to live is more important than a person's right to kill, no matter how old, no matter their race, their gender or what," she said.

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