Just over a month ago, Andrew Torgashev was leaving the gym in Coral Springs, Fla., when he found out a gunman armed with an AR-15 assault-style semi-automatic rifle had killed 14 former classmates, two coaches and a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Watching from his home across the street, he saw police, EMTs and SWAT rush past to the high school while a helicopter circled overhead.

It “didn’t feel real,” he said. “I would’ve been involved in the shooting if I wasn’t … moving.”

Saturday, three weeks after moving to Colorado Springs, Torgashev walked arm-in-arm with his friends, leading more than 2,000 people in the March for Our Lives from Acacia Park down Nevada Avenue to protest school gun violence.

“We’re not trampling on old rights, we’re preserving new freedoms,” the 16-year-old said.

The Colorado Springs march was among the more than 800 demonstrations held across the globe Saturday from Los Angeles to London to Hong Kong, primarily organized by teenagers and other young people to honor the Parkland, Fla., shooting victims and demand a ban on AR-15s and other gun control measures.

The largest rally, in Washington, D.C., was led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where former student Nikolas Cruz, 19, stalked halls for nearly 6½ minutes on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, shooting students and staff. The march attracted an estimated 800,000 people frustrated with federal lawmakers’ inaction following school massacres and everyday gun violence, The Washington Post reported.

Tens of thousands marched in Denver, including survivors of the 1999 Columbine shooting in which 12 students and a teacher were killed by two fellow students who killed themselves.

Many in Denver targeted Colorado’s Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, who has taken millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the gun right lobbying group the National Rifle Association. Marchers chanted, “Vote him out,” as a plane passed overhead pulling a sign reading, “$3.8M from the NRA! Who does Cory Gardner work for?”

In Pueblo, several hundred people marched, including about 70 local high school students, who said they intend to continue their activism against gun violence.

“This is something we’re passionate about,” said Alanna Jackson, a 17-year-old Centennial High School junior who used Snapchat to help organize the student rally at the courthouse. “We’re going to be relentless. This is not just a fad.”

Unlike the student-led marches in many other cities, the demonstration in Colorado Springs was organized by the local chapter of Mothers Against School Shootings.

The focus, though, was on the teenagers, who have grown up with lockdowns and active-shooter drills even if they haven’t lived through a shooting.

“I want the children’s voices to be heard by the people who can make the decisions,” Amy Spaulding, a member of the mothers group whose daughter attends Liberty High School, told the crowd before the marchers left Acacia Park.

“I hope Congress opens its eyes because these 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the next couple of years, and they will vote politicians out who aren’t listening now,” she said.

Dixie Elkins, 16, and classmate 15-year-old Gianna Rogers, said they are fighting for their survival.

“Adults in this country, especially in the government, have taken the interests of money and guns over its kids,” said Elkins, a Thomas MacLaren School student. “They’re not going to stand up for us, so we need to stand up for ourselves.”

“School is supposed to be the safe place,” Rogers said. “We’re supposed to go there to learn, not to die.

“I don’t want to think that every time I leave for school that I’m saying goodbye to my parents for the last time.”

Elkins and Rogers said they were encouraged that the majority of marchers in Colorado Springs were older than them and could vote in the coming election.

“The parents and grandparents of this city are showing that they are willing to stand up for us,” Elkins said.

Said Rogers, “These are the people that can vote, and if they hear us, they can vote for us.”

Even those too young to vote echoed the phrase that has come to symbolize the re-energized effort for gun control after other mass shootings resulted in “thoughts and prayers” from politicians, but little action.

“History can’t repeat itself multiple times….Enough is enough,” said Meg Hartung, an eighth-grader at Cheyenne Mountain Junior High.

Many parents at the march said they had thought the turning point would be Sandy Hook in 2012, when 20 little children and six staff were killed at the elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

“When Sandy Hook happened, he was just an infant,” said Shea Ford, pointing to her 9-year-old son,  William. “I couldn’t imagine what those parents were going through.”

Waiting six years and multiple school shootings for something to be done is “insanity,” she said.

“The definition of insanity is repetition, and this is insanity. I’m ready to have sane leaders who are for a ban on assault rifles.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, a Boulder Democrat seeking his party’s nomination to run for governor in November, told the Colorado Springs crowd that he intends to be one of the leaders.

“I’m so proud of the young people in El Paso County for saying enough is enough and that politicians need to listen,” he said. “I’m proud to join my voice with theirs to advocate for responsible gun control.”

State Sen. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, joined Polis in recognizing the determination of young activists. Merrifield, who sponsored a failed bill banning bump stocks, a device that can speed a semi-automatic gun’s rate of fire, attended the Denver march.

“I am so proud of the young people who are marching today,” he told Colorado Politics Saturday via text. “I think they have made a difference.”

State Sen. Owen Hill, a Colorado Springs Republican hoping to challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn in the party’s primary, also attended the march, but as a gun rights supporter.

He tried unsuccessfully to overturn Colorado’s 15-round limit on ammunition magazinesthat Democratic majorities passed in 2013.

“Government rarely can make a significant impact on these big issues,” Hill said before he voted against the bump-stock measure. “Law-abiding citizens are usually the ones who are impacted, and those who willfully disobey the law cannot be controlled by this.”

The Gazette’s Erin Prater and Joey Bunch contributed to this report.