Our brand new bi-partisan protest movement against lax U.S. gun laws (begun in Alexandria on April 22, just days after the Virginia Tech massacre) is spreading.

In May, we held our Protest Easy Guns protest in Times Square in New York Cit

y and Mayor Bloomberg came by to shake our hands. Protests are now emerging in community after community.

Recently, 16-year-old Emma Prins, a high school student in Arlington, organized a protest in front of the Arlington County Central Library. The protesters, representing the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, laid on the ground in a lie-in/die-in for several minutes (representing the amount of time it took the shooter to buy a gun in Virginia).

The protesters are all outraged and all agree that it is too easy to buy a gun in the United States and our lax gun laws must be changed.

Emmas protest is the fifth protest of the new Protest Easy Guns social movement, which emerged in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Most of us have never protested a thing before in our lives.

We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, male and female, and all ages (even hunters wives because we are not against guns for hunters, private protection, or collectors guns just the ease at which criminals can buy guns). We do not raise money we are fueled solely by passion and outrage at how lax our gun laws are in the United States.

Addressing those assembled, Emma said, I think its essential to have youth involvement in gun control legislation. . . . The NRAs response to this tragedy was to promote the right to have guns in colleges. I know I want college to be a safe-haven, a place to focus on education and independence, not worry about who has a gun on campus or whether Ill get shot.

Youth in America and especially the Northern Virginia area have so many opportunities to become involved but dont. We all are so busy with what college will I get into or who am I going to prom with that we forget about being involved in political issues. We forget that as American citizens we have the right to voice our opinions.  

I hope that with time more and more youth will be involved and know that they can change the world despite what a small voice they think they have.

Abigail Spangler, Ph.D., lives in Old Town and is founder of Protest Easy Guns, www.protesteasyguns.com.