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Democrats Busing Supporters To Student Gun Control March

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Democrats from nearby states are busing adults and students to Washington, D.C., for the student gun control control march Saturday.

Pro-gun-control students at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School organized the march in response to the mass shooting at their school in February. Teacher’s unions and progressive groups including Women’s March and Planned Parenthood and helped the students organize the march just days after the shooting.

Democratic groups in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia are bolstering the march’s numbers as well by busing supporters into D.C. for the protest.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin is hosting a pre-march rally in his district then busing supporters over to the D.C. march, Bethesda Magazine reported.

“Please join me and dozens of other Members of Congress on Saturday, March 24 at the ‘March for Our Lives’ in D.C. with thousands of Maryland high school students and Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg and all the grieving young people coming up from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida,” Raskin wrote in a Facebook event for the march. Several progressive groups are assisting Raskin’s efforts.

Democratic congressional candidate David Trone is also busing supporters to the march. Democratic Maryland Rep. John Delaney, who is already running for president in 2020, is listed as a “special guest” in promotions for Trone’s event.

The city arranged to bus up to 3,000 students to the march, Baltimore Democrat mayor Catherine Pugh said, according to The Washington Post. The city will provide T-shirts and lunches for the students. Private donors picked up the cost of the buses and no taxpayer funds were used, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office later clarified.

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is leading a Democratic group in nearby Arlington to the D.C. march, Arlington Democrats announced in a press release. “Led by former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Arlington Democrats will march in solidarity from Memorial Bridge to the March for Our Lives!” The press release states. The group plans on bringing banners.

Other Democratic groups in the state are also bringing supporters to the march. A group in Rockingham plans on filling two buses. The Democratic Women of Clifton and Northern Virginia are driving buses to and from the march.

In Pennsylvania, the Columbia County Democratic Committee sold out its bus to D.C. Another Democratic group in the state did so as well. (RELATED: Boycotts Against NRA Have Backfire Effect, Galvanize Conservatives)

New York’s Southold Town Democratic Committee is sponsoring a bus trip to D.C. Staten Island’s North Shore Democratic Club is rallying people too. Other Democratic groups in the state are sponsoring buses for students who want to attend.

Update: this story has been updated to note the mayor’s statement that no taxpayer funds were used in busing Baltimore students to the march.

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