From left: South Florida residents Fred Guttenberg, and Patricia and Manuel Oliver support each other Saturday afternoon at the March on NRA protest in Fairfax. Guttenberg lost his 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg, to a mass shooter Valentine’s Day at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. — where the Oliver’s son, Joachim Oliver, also was killed. Aug. 4 would have been Joachim’s 18th birthday and his life was celebrated with song, cake and a graffiti wall spray painted during the rally with his image and the message: “We demand to blow out our candles.” Photo by Marti Moore/The Connection
Hundreds of activists gathered Saturday for three hours at 11250 Waples Mill Rd. in Fairfax to protest gun violence at a youth-led rally called March on NRA.
The event was held on the birthday of Joachim Oliver, a student who was fatally shot on Valentine’s Day earlier this year at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Seventeen people lost their lives to a gunman too young to buy beer yet old enough to buy an AR-15 assault rifle he purchased legally last year, according to police reports of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
Oliver would have turned 18 on Aug. 4 and be old enough to vote on Election Day 2018. A graffiti mural was spray painted Saturday afternoon in his honor and participants wrote their names and messages on the wall. Around 1:30 p.m., a
