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Patricia McQueen, whose daughter, Kayla Rolland, was shot in February by a fellow first-grade classmate in Flint, Mich., gave a short, emotional speech. "The gun that killed my daughter in her classroom was one that could be loaded by a 6-year-old, carried by a 6-year-old and fired by a 6-year-old," she said.

Jim Brady, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan -- who along with his wife, Sarah, has been a vigorous champion of gun control since he was seriously injured in an attempt on the former president's life in 1981 -- spoke of the need to "change the firearms laws, or the lawmakers." Three mothers of kindergartners who were killed in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996 spoke of their successful push to pass a handgun ban in the wake of that massacre.

The march also attracted its share of celebrities and high-profile politicians. Susan Sarandon, Melissa Etheridge, Melissa Manchester, Courtney Love and Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend all took the stage.

Sarandon argued for mandatory trigger locks, noting that it is easier to operate a gun than remove a childproof top from a bottle of Tylenol. She and most of the speakers also hammered home the message that the ultimate success of the rally would depend on the action attendees took in their communities. In addition to voting, speaker after speaker urged marchers to write their representatives, help organize gun buybacks and vote.

"I'm not going to let Jesse Helms outdo me!" Children's Defense Fund president Marion Wright Edelman yelled to the crowd.

Rep. Jarrold Nadler, D-N.Y., reiterated that theme when he spoke separately with reporters. The march would get congressional representatives' attention, he said, but what would make a real difference would be the pressure attendees exerted in their home districts. And while Congress has shied away from imposing even mild gun restrictions, such as closing the "gun show loophole" of the Brady Bill's background checks, Nadler said he expected registration and licensing requirements would be passed within five years. "A critical mass is developing," he said. "It's like what MADD did -- they forced the laws to be passed. The same thing will happen with guns."

The audience seemed hungry for this optimism. All the women I spoke to gave the same reason for turning up: They were "fed up" with gun violence that claims the lives of 12 children a day (a statistic cited often throughout the day), and they wanted to do something about it.

"I'm scared to go to work," said Denise Loiselle of Seminole, Fla., who was accompanied by her college-age daughter. "And I've had enough. This is a cause that is worth driving 24 hours for."

Other women spoke of the losses their families had suffered because of gun violence. "My four grandchildren are going to grow up without a father," said Charlotte Gray, whose 30-year-old son was killed in a random shooting in Washington in 1999. "Something needs to be done. I don't want another mother to go through what I've been through."

Albuquerque, N.M., native Joan Shirley, whose son was shot dead along with two friends by an unknown assailant last year, said the loss galvanized her to activism. "I'm embarrassed to say I was one of those people who thought that it wouldn't happen to me," she said. "I'm particularly touched by those who are here who haven't lost anyone to violence, people who are here to help support the cause."

Help the cause and, perhaps in a few cases, also catch 15 seconds of fame. When one mother spotted a local television camera she hissed to her daughter: "Emily, pick up your sign!"

The crowd also had its share of hecklers. A man decked out in colonial garb, who would give his name only as "Citizen," carried a sign proclaiming "the right to keep and bear arms must never be licensed." "What are you going to do if he breaks down the door at night?" he yelled out to no one in particular. "Fight him off with a golf club?"

But for the most part, the tone of the rally had all the gravity of maternity. Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, riffed on the mother theme in her address to the crowd. As a mother, she said, she had put latches on kitchen cabinets and had spoken to her children about how to handle the pressures to have sex and take drugs.

"We've worked 24/7 to keep them safe," she said. "We want moderate, sensible laws that keep them safe." And to those who ask why those laws are necessary, Quindlen offered the same response she said she often gives to her three children: "Because I said so."

In one of the day's more poignant moments, pop star Courtney Love reminded the audience that the leading cause of gun deaths is suicide, a fact that her late husband, Kurt Cobain, who killed himself with a shotgun, has come to symbolize. Choked up and holding back tears, Love called for background checks that would include the mental health of gun purchasers and expressed her sadness over the copycat deaths her husband's suicide inspired.

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