Associated Press

Virginia Tech sociology professor Bradley Hertel (foreground) holds the hand of Anne Goddard during an anti-gun "lie in" Wednesday on the campus of Virginia Tech. On the first anniversary of the nation's worst mass shooting, participants protested the ease with which people can buy guns. The protesters urged Virginia lawmakers to require background checks for sales at gun shows.

BLACKSBURG -- They lay down on the grass of the Drillfield, roughly halfway between the places where two groups of victims had lain one year ago in Norris and West Ambler Johnston halls.

In silence, the 50-some protestors stayed down for three minutes, about the time they said it takes to buy a gun.

Unlike the other vigils and ceremonies held on campus and around the region to mark the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, this one did more than commemorate the dead: It appealed to the living to do something about the ease with which guns are purchased in America.

"I have no fear of firearms," said Peter Read, a U.S. Air Force veteran whose daughter, Mary, was one of the 32 victims of last year's shootings on the Tech campus.

"But I am afraid of what can happen in this country when we don't take the most simple, common-sense precautions," said Read, who spoke to about 100 people attending the protest.

At Tuesday's lie-in and about 75 others like it across the country, participants called for better gun control laws, including one that would require background checks for all potential buyers at gun shows.

"Dangerous individuals, mentally ill people and even terrorists can buy guns today at a gun show unchecked," said Omar Samaha, who lost his sister, Reema, in the shootings. "That should not be allowed to happen in this country."

In the context of April 16, perhaps the biggest failing of Virginia's gun laws was a gap in the reporting system for a database intended to prevent mentally ill people from buying guns.

Before the shootings, only people who had been committed to a mental institution were included in the database used to run background checks on gun buyers. That allowed two handgun purchases by Seung-Hui Cho, the troubled Tech student who had been ordered to receive outpatient treatment 16 months before he committed the mass murders.

The gap Cho slipped through has already been closed. But protesters said Tuesday that more needs to be done -- including closing the so-called gun show loophole. Lawmakers rejected such a bill earlier this year, allowing unlicensed gun sellers to continue making transactions without background checks on buyers.

Lori Haas, the mother of Emily Haas, who was wounded in Norris Hall, made a plea before lying down in the grass: "Let your voices be heard," she said. "Please let our legislators know how you feel. They can close the gun show loophole, and they will if we let our voices be heard."

Cho did not buy his guns at a gun show.

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, called the gun show debate "a political football."

"It's inappropriate," Van Cleave said after observing a similar rally and lie-in at Capitol Square in Richmond, where demonstrators read the names of the Tech victims and called for stricter gun laws. "It wouldn't have done anything in this case, and we'll continue to fight it."

Even before it started, the protest at Tech generated controversy.

Some worried that political activism would mar the day's somber tone. After the Student Government Association passed a resolution last week urging students not to protest, a compromise was reached. Organizers agreed to push the event back several hours to avoid a conflict with a morning commemoration ceremony, and to hold it on the opposite end of the Drillfield.

The Drillfield event drew a lone counter-demonstrator. Joe Painter, a Blacksburg attorney and Virginia Tech graduate, stood at the edge of the crowd wearing a sign that read: "Brady Go Home; Show some respect."

Although the lie-in was organized by students, it had the backing of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and ProtestEasyGuns.com, a grass-roots organization formed after the shootings.

"This is pure politics," Painter said of the lie-in. "It has nothing to do with the memory of the 32 who were murdered."

Staff writer Michael Sluss contributed to this report.