'No more silence': Hundreds rally in Toronto for tighter U.S. gun controls

Hundreds of students, parents descended in Toronto for the March For Our Lives rally to show solidarity with the growing U.S. gun control movement in the wake of last month's mass school shooting. 

The Toronto rally got underway at 10 a.m. Saturday at Nathan Phillips Square, where demonstrators began the 1.5-kilometre march to Queen's Park calling for tighter gun laws in the states.

"My path to education is quite literally being trumped by fear of being shot at everyday I go to school and I don't know if I'll come home," Henry Dryden told CBC Toronto. 

Along the way, organizers held a moment of silence in front of the U.S. consulate for the 14 students and three staff members of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who were killed on Valentine's Day.

Dryden, a 16-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, explained gun control is a broken system that leaves students living in "fear" and vulnerable.

"We've had students bringing knives to school because we don't know what will happen to us next," he said. "I can't stress enough just how worried I am about being in American in general."

Their deaths have reignited public anger over mass shootings and sparked a groundswell of protest throughout the U.S. organized by some of the students who were at the school that day.

"We've come together as a huge community after this," said Dryden. 

"No more silence, end gun violence," members of the Communities for Zero Violence, which organized the Toronto rally, chanted as they marched north along University Avenue in the city's downtown area. "The time for change is now."

Family and friends whose lives have been touched by gun violence made their voices heard in the shadow of Ontario's legislature about the matter of firearm control in the U.S. They explained while it's not as prevalent of an issue in Canada it still exists and needs to be addressed. 

"It's not just America's problem," said Toronto student Colin Monahan. 

The shooting death of an innocent bystander at a North York bowling alley last weekend and the death of Nnamdi Ogba last Friday was at the forefront of the conversation.

Ruma Amar, 29, was shot at the front entrance of Playtime Bowl and Entertainment while standing near the intended target on March 18, police said. 

A day earlier, Ogba, a 26-year-old electrical engineer, was fatally shot in the back several times in Etobicoke after being at a friends house. According to police, Ogba was walking towards his parked car when two men approached him from behind him and shot him. 

"We haven't done enough to prevent these crimes and these weapons," Monahan said of Canada's gun control laws.

The Toronto protest coincided with at least 16 rallies planned in other Canadian cities, from coast-to-coast. 

More than 800 demonstrations were scheduled worldwide, according to American gun-control group Everytown For Gun Safety. This included a March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of thousands of Americans aimed to break through a legislative gridlock that has long stymied efforts to tighten firearm controls.

Mass shootings at American schools and colleges have become a regular occurrence.

According to Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit tracking gun violence incidents, there have been 49 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone. The organization defines mass shootings as four or more shot or killed, not including the shooter.