BLACKSBURG — Gun control advocates planning to protest April 16 on Virginia Tech’s Drillfield said today that they hope to reach a compromise with the university that will allow them to protest without interfering with remembrance events.

Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, said the group has been working with Tech students on the protest. It would involve a 32-person “lie in” at noon April 16, the one-year anniversary of shootings on the campus that resulted in the deaths of 32 people plus the shooter.

The Brady Campaign sent out a media advisory last Thursday announcing the event, planned in conjunction with the gun control group ProtestEasyGuns.com. Hamm said the gun-control groups had not discussed the event with the university, but he was initially discouraged by what he saw as a hard-line stance by the university against issuing a permit. He said this morning that the event would go ahead as scheduled — permit or no permit. But by this afternoon, he was optimistic that Tech students involved in the protest would be able to reach a compromise with the administration. He said the goal of the protesters was never to interfere with memorial events.

“If the parties talk to each other, I think these issues are fully resolvable,” he said.

Hamm said the university and the Brady Campaign had traded phone calls this afternoon, and he was trying to facilitate discussion between students and the university.

To demonstrate on campus, protesters need to apply for an assembly permit. Tech doesn’t allow anyone not affiliated with the university to assemble on campus. Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said today that no groups have applied for a permit for April 16, when the university will hold a day of remembrance to honor the April 16 victims.

Hincker wouldn’t rule out the possibility of the university giving a permit to a student group to assemble somewhere on campus on April 16, but he said the Drillfield, with events planned that morning and evening, is already spoken for, and the university didn’t want anything to interrupt the “solemnity” of the day.

Hincker said the gun control issue is an important one and the university understands the rights of people to express themselves, but April 16 is a time for the community to heal and reflect on the lives of people lost a year ago.

“April 16 is, to us, truly a solemn day,” he said. “It’s a day of remembrance.”

Hamm said the Tech students organizing the protest have not applied for a permit with the university, but he expected the two sides to have “constructive conversations that will hopefully lead to an amicable resolution.” He would not say who the student organizers are because they’ve asked the national group to deal with reporters.

But Hamm said decisions on how the protest would be carried out would be determined by the students, not the Brady Campaign or ProtestEasyGuns.com.

“It’s not for us to say what’s an acceptable resolution,” Hamm said. “It’s their protest.”

Abigail Spangler, founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com began organizing similar lie-in protests after last year’s tragedy and has dubbed April 16 National Lie-In Day, with more than 50 events planned around the country. The group has protested in various spots in Virginia and held a lie in outside the Capitol in Richmond in January as legislators considered a bill to close the state’s so-called “gun show loophole.” The legislation, which would’ve required private sellers to conduct the same criminal background checks on buyers that licensed dealers must perform, was defeated.

Hamm said the lie-ins are quiet, short and peaceful. The protest would take place after the university commemoration events on the Drillfield that morning.

“I don’t think anyone should see a lie-in as a cause for alarm,” Hamm said.

Scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., the commemoration events will involve the reading of names of the victims and short tributes to each of them. Gov. Tim Kaine, a supporter of bills to close the gun-show loophole, will be there.