{"id":52129,"date":"2022-09-12T18:30:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/cnv\/?p=52129"},"modified":"2022-09-22T18:54:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T18:54:37","slug":"could-campaign-targeting-gun-sellers-help-end-mass-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/cnv\/2022\/09\/could-campaign-targeting-gun-sellers-help-end-mass-shootings\/","title":{"rendered":"Could a campaign targeting gun sellers help end mass shootings?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it comes to stopping mass shootings, we don\u2019t need to wait for policy makers to \u201cdo the right thing.\u201d Change can happen, here and now, and we can push for it with nonviolent direct action. This is a strategic approach that takes matters into our own hands, rather than appealing to authorities. It\u2019s what desegregated lunch counters, movie theaters, and buses in the 1950s and 60s. And it can serve us well today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sept. 22, as part of the Campaign Nonviolence Action Days, Tom Hastings will use nonviolent direct action to try to stop the sale of automatic assault rifles at Shooters Service in Portland, Oregon. His plan is simple: he will walk into the gun shop and ask the owner to stop selling them. If the owner refuses, Tom will stay until the owner agrees \u2014 or he gets kicked out. Tom, a longtime activist, trainer and educator in nonviolent struggle, is willing to risk arrest. For him, stopping the next school shooter is worth it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wants to ask the owners of Shooters Service to \u201ctake the lead in declining to sell military assault rifles such as the AR-15. That is a useless weapon for hunting and is a battlefield weapon. There is no place for it in civil society. That class of war weaponry is what has been used to slaughter children in schools, racially-targeted shoppers, worshippers in houses of religion, and even just concert-goers and nightclub crowds.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This action reminds us that there is a group of people who can swiftly reduce the threat of mass shootings: gun sellers. We have written them off as a “lost cause” and assumed that they would not voluntarily stop selling automatic assault rifles. But why? Pressure campaigns have shifted the business practices of far more entrenched industries. Imagine what would happen to gun sales if there were lines of concerned citizens outside every gun shop and weapons convention trying to keep people from buying automatic assault rifles. A campaign focusing on gun shops also raises and refocuses the moral question: if you profess to mourn the shooting of our children in their schools, why would you keep selling the weapons that slaughter them? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the very least, efforts like Tom\u2019s can bring attention and awareness to the very places that mass shooters get their weaponry. It\u2019s not only a place to intervene with gun owners, but also with gun buyers. <\/em>This is the second group of people who could, under pressure, prevent automatic assault rifles from finding their way into our schools and streets. What could round-the-clock vigils do to stop an individual from buying an automatic assault rifle? Would such scrutiny maintain better standards around background checks? It might even deter people from trying to buy guns. (The analogy of a suicide watch or intervention is not out-of-place here. Can a gun violence watch at the point of purchase prevent gun deaths?) We are too quick to assume that all power lies in the hands of politicians \u2014 and this assumption plays straight into a strategic trap, given the intense dislike of federal regulation by many of the gun rights proponents, sellers and owners. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Nonviolent direct action is powerful, as Tom Hastings\u2019 decades of experience show. He is no stranger to nonviolent action. In 1985, he was the first to dismantle a portion of a thermonuclear command base, a complex 84-mile length of above-and-below-ground thick antenna signaling system running along the Northwoods of Wisconsin and Michigan near the South Shore of Lake Superior. He and the late Donna Howard did it again in 1996 on Earth Day, earning a three year prison sentence (serving one year before parole and probation). Tom has also been part of campaigns for Anishinaabe treaty rights, resisting the cluster bombs and nuclear missile guidance components of Honeywell, helping create a mass movement in Portland, Oregon against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and much more. He is a professor of conflict studies at Portland State University and an expert witness for climate justice activists. Tom also co-founded the Portland Peace Team, which de-escalates threats of violence between protesters, counter-protesters, police and other parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the Portland Peace Team will accompany Tom during his action, helping to deal with any rising tensions inside the gun shop. Tom has also put forward a code of conduct for the action which the peace team members will remind people of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n