A student filled her backpack with 217,069 grains of rice Saturday to represent the number lives killed because of gun violence.

She was among the students from Westview and Poway High School hosting a town hall to promote discussion on common sense gun reforms and school safety at Westview High School.

The event was held in conjunction with simultaneous student-led town halls across the country.

The “Town Hall for Our Lives” was organized by the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, just two weeks after the held the “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C.

The San Diego organizers invited members of Congress to the community forum, and Congressman Scott Peters was among the attendees, and he responded to students’ questions about tightening background checks for Internet sales and gun shows.

“This is the point of the King Thompson Bill, which is a bipartisan bill I'm supporting to close those loopholes to apply the same background check to any sale of a gun,” Peters said. "It doesn't make sense to have different standards and I think it's one of the most important things we can do to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people."

Congressman Duncan Hunter didn’t show, so two of his challengers took his place at the event.

"We are not stealing guns away,” Hannah Williams, a senior at Poway High School, said at the event. “We are not trying to take away your right to own guns. We simply want to restrict the guns you're able to buy to make sure you're using them for the right intentions. If we have to go through standardized testing, so should gun owners."

Another student walkout is planned for April 20th, the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.