THOUSANDS of people demonstrated in Florida at the weekend to demand stricter gun laws following 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz’s shooting spree at a school which left 17 children and staff dead.

Activists are planning more rallies across the country in the coming weeks, with organisers behind the Women’s March calling for a 17-minute nationwide walkout by teachers and students on March 14.

The Network for Public Education, an anti-privatisation group, announced a day of walkouts, sit-ins and other events on school campuses on April 20, the anniversary of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in which two teenage boys massacred 12 students and one teacher.