Washington, March 25 (IANS): The White House praised the numerous demonstrations held on Saturday across the US in favour of greater gun control, mostly organised by students, bringing almost a million people into the streets.

"We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights (which protect the right to free speech)," Efe quoted the White House spokesman Lindsay Walters as saying.

Walters said that "keeping our children safe" is very important to US President Donald Trump, though he has yet to comment on the approximately 800 protests being held around the country.

"Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President's, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS and STOP School Violence Acts," two laws that aim to improve the system of background checks before gun purchases and to strengthen security in schools, he said.

The Fix NICS Act will improve existing laws to guarantee that authorities transmit information about everyone with criminal records to the database of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to discover in minutes if someone buying a gun has ever committed a crime.

Meanwhile, the White House recalled in its statement that the US Justice Department "issued the rule to ban bump stocks following through on the President's commitment to ban devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns," in response to the growing demand for new policies to reduce gun violence.

The largest march demanding more gun control was to begin at 12:00 noon in Washington with the expected participation of 500,000 protesters.