I won’t lie. As the director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, it’s been fun watching the Democratic presidential candidates jump over each other in trying to be the strongest on the issue of gun violence prevention — as well as the most vocal opponent of the National Rifle Association. Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley are puffing out their chests and demonstrating fearlessness, the most precious commodity our movement possesses. And Bernie Sanders? We’re going to make sure he doesn’t win anything until he supports a full repeal of the noxious 2005 Gun Industry Immunity law, which gave gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers unprecedented legal immunity from their own negligent behavior.
It’s hard to tell right now if the candidates are feeding off the American public or vice-versa. But Clinton has been leading on this issue for some time now — long before she officially announced her candidacy. For some reason, the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon last month really resonated with the public. My organization is seeing that in the correspondences we’ve been receiving from concerned citizens, who have had enough and want to get involved as volunteers on the ground.
When you work on this issue for some time, it’s always very difficult to guess which tragedies will move people to action. My sense with Umpqua is that it finally cemented for people that this endless cycle of daily, gun-related horrors is never going to end given the current status quo on gun laws. I think the same old tired argument about “gun-free zones” is falling flat, too, because Umpqua allows students to carry concealed handguns. MSNBC interviewed a veteran named John Parker, Jr. who confirmed that he and many other students were carrying their firearms on campus that day, but decided not to intervene because they were worried about being shot by responding SWAT officers.
All of a sudden, there’s been a spontaneous burst of energy at the grassroots level, as evidenced by actions like Jessica Jin’s “Cocks Not Glocks” protest at the University of Texas against a law that will allow guns on campus starting next August. Overall, the commentary is increasingly shifting toward a focus on gun culture, as opposed to policy. The times they are a changin’.
It is probably the greatest outburst of energy we have seen since the Sandy Hook massacre, which fundamentally transformed our movement. The two areas where we have long fought to level the playing field with the National Rifle Association are political fundraising and grassroots energy. We have made enormous strides in both areas since that awful day of December 14, 2012.
I am no fan of Big Money in politics — it erodes political equality entirely, and reform is desperately needed to restore the concept of “one person, one vote” — but we have suffered terribly for decades from having no skin in the game when the NRA was paying off politicians left and right. Too many lawmakers who agreed with us in principle ended up voting against us because they were afraid of the NRA running ads against them, sponsoring rallies in their district, getting the vote out on the pro-gun side through paid campaigns, etc. They always had the comfort of knowing that they would never have to face similar resources on our side.
That changed for good when former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched his Independence USA PAC in 2012. For the first time, we had the resources to reward candidates who voted with us and punish those who didn’t. Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords then launched the Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, which is also extremely well-funded. Both PACs are heavily involved in Virginia’s off-years races right now and that will continue in the upcoming 2016 elections. The great crusade of the 21st century has to be getting money out of politics, but as long as the NRA is free to spend in political races, I want to make sure our side can as well. Lives depend on it.
The gun violence prevention, or GVP, movement has also made enormous inroads in terms of grassroots organizing in the last three years. For starters, Sandy Hook led to the creation of a new national organization mobilizing activists on the ground in 50 states: Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (now incorporated under the Everytown for Gun Safety umbrella with Mayors Against Illegal Guns). Existing coalitions like States United to Prevent Gun Violence in America added additional state organizations and new volunteers as well. Equally important, progressive groups that previously paid lip service to gun violence prevention became fully vested in it. This includes Organizing for America, Americans United for Change, and the fantastic new gun violence prevention team at the Center for American Progress led by Arkadi Gerney.
The result has been a far greater deal of activity on the ground by volunteers, even in red states. This has manifested itself in terms of lobbying visits to lawmakers, attendance at legislative hearings, and even single-issue voting (yes, the gun violence prevention movement is now hearing from many Americans who are indicating they will only vote for candidates who are solid on the gun issue). It has made an enormous difference in our campaigns and advocacy. For the first time in a long time, politicians understand that they better look both ways before deciding how to vote on gun bills.
We are incredibly unified. The federal and state groups in the movement do weekly conference calls and at least one face-to-face meeting each year. A day does not go by in which I am not directly working with activists and organizations from across the country. I don’t want to get too corny with this, but we really are family. Many of us have been working together for many years and you don’t join this movement to get rich — we all believe in this work passionately.
There is broad agreement in the movement that our federal priority should continue to be universal background checks, and also quite a bit of consensus on the types of state policies we need to be promoting. Once you get outside of that, there is a diverse range of opinion in terms of the strategies our movement should be employing for mobilizing grassroots support, messaging with the public, etc. I’m sure you’d find the same in any movement in America. So for those of you calling for a GVP mega-merger, don’t hold your breath. It not’s going to happen on any large-scale in the near future, and it is no panacea for breaking the NRA’s political power anyway.
Finally, we have mutually agreed to never use the term “gun control” again. It is a term from a far earlier time before multi-millionaires like Wayne LaPierre routinely exploited our government’s good name for their own profit. None of our organizations have any problem with Americans owning firearms for a host of legitimate purposes; hunting, recreational shooting, home defense, etc. We will not operate in the biased frame they have spent millions discrediting.
In the months ahead, you will see our movement make aggressive efforts to become more diverse (we need to do a better job of reaching out to communities of color and speaking to issues that they are most concerned about, including gun violence committed by police). You will also see us speak about the cultural aspect of the issue in a way that is far more confident and assured. No longer will the NRA be the sole arbiter of political and moral values on this issue. We are challenging them aggressively on their promotion of insurrectionist ideology and now have them squarely on the defensive in this area. We have seen recently seismic cultural shifts on the issues of gay marriage and the Confederate flag. Our moment is coming as well. We are going to make reckless, threatening gun ownership as cool as second-hand smoke.
Look to see our movement continue to push ballot referendums on universal background checks and other important policy questions at the state level. The policies we promote enjoy broad public support (a recent survey found that 93 percent of registered voters support universal backgrounds checks on all gun sales) and the referendum process allows us to get around legislative stagnation and take these decisions directly to the people. Nevada and Maine, in the 2016 election, are the next two target states and many more will follow from there.
This movement has come a long way since I started as a professional in 2006. Today, we are better organized, better funded, and more determined than ever. It is only a matter of time before we break the political power of the NRA and create space for reforms that can save countless lives. On that day, not only America but the entire world will rejoice.
As an individual advocate for gun violence prevention, I am thankful for the support that myself and others have received from those who have been in the struggle for decades, and have formed grass root groups for our support. Without them, it we would be standing alone against the corporate gun lobby. I am grateful for their help in saving American lives from unnecessary gun violence.
I’m so grateful for the work people like Ladd and groups like CAGV have been doing for so many years. I became an advocate after Sandy Hook and to see the tireless work they have been doing for so long to make our communities safer has been inspiring and encouraging!
Ladd Everitt and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are a guiding force in the efforts to end the stranglehold of the NRA and the craziness of gun violence in America. I remain thankful for all they do and their commitment to reform America’s gun laws to save lives.
Thank you for your diligence and perseverance. The time for change is here! With a son soon to go to college
Open Carry is something I’m asking each, and will definitely shape which university my son attends!
I have to agree that the tide is finally changing. The carnage has gone on too long because politicians have been afraid of the merchants of death, but their interests are not the public’s interests. It’s truly refreshing to see politicians put this issue in the public eye.
You hit the proverbial nail on the head and I certainly hope this wave of activity yields the tangible results that you’re predicting sooner rather than later. You know we’re doing our part here in Pennsylvania.
I am grateful to Ladd and his organization (and all the other GVP organizations he mentioned) for fighting to prevent further bloodshed like that which took my daughter’s life and those of four of her classmates in a lecture hall at her midwestern university.
So…if someone buys a Craftsman hammer at Sears and kills someone with that hammer, you’d hold that Craftsman/Sears has liability in the murder and should be charged…or sanctioned…or sued.
Damn stupid of you.
Gun violence prevention is a matter of life and death. Someone dies from gunshot wounds from an attack in America about once an hour. How much better can it be? Someone dies from gunshot wounds from an attack on the island of Great Britain but about once a week. A year has 52 weeks, 8,760 hours.
Of every three who die from attacks in America two die from gunshot wounds, of fifty on Great Britain three only. Attacks are no more frequent here but the use of a gun in an attack is much more frequent. A person under attack is MUCH more likely to die if the attacker uses a gun (instead of some other kind of weapon). The frequency of death from attacks (murder) here is 450% of its frequency on Great Britain.
Delaney puts words in other people’s mouths. No one wrote that “if someone buys a Craftsman hammer at Sears and kills someone with that hammer, . . . Craftsman/Sears has liability in the murder and should be charged…or sanctioned…or sued.”
• Unlike the design of a handgun, the design of a hammer is not to turn a healthy person into a corpse.
• The FBI reported that in 2014 someone died from an attack with a blunt object (club, hammer, etc.) 435 times; and that someone died from an attack from a gun 8,124 times.
Gun nuts frequently change the subject from guns to other more innocuous things such as “inanimate object,” tools, swimming pools, cars, baseball bats, knives, and so on because they know guns are very alarming to most Americans. Twice as many households have no guns as those that do and the portion of those that do is every dwindling as most Americans have no use for guns.
A man bringing a gun into a home increases the risk of death to everyone in the home—most of all himself (suicide) but also his partner (suicide and homicide), teenagers (suicide), children, and visitors.
Homes with no guns are safer places to live and visit.
The NRA is the only lobbyist group funded largely by everyday citizens. The UK is now trying to deal with “knife control.” In China, hundreds have been killed or seriously wounded in school attacks involving machetes, meat cleavers, knives, etc. Here in the United States, last month, a woman mowed down a crowd of people on a busy sidewalk with her car in what is now thought to have been an intentional attack. But keep blaming inanimate objects…
It`s about time that we stood to the NRA !
Bob, members of the gun control lobby have been “standing up” to the NRA for many years. In fact, they have needed to modify their goals and in some cases even their names in hopes of attracting more supporters.
In fact, Mr. Ladd’s organization was at one time named The National Coalition to Ban Handguns. However, the relabeling doesn’t seem to have worked since gun rights have been expanding nationwide while violent crime and accidental gun deaths have dropped steadily during the same period.
The voices have been consistent, the numbers are growing, common sense solutions to reducing gun violence are being discussed in more places by more people. This is how people effect change.
There will always be naysayers and those who unfortunately are repeating incorrect information fed to them by the NRA and others. However, we are hearing more and more from responsible gun owners who have figured out that reducing gun violence is a cause we should all be for.
You are never going to reduce the issue of people being shot until you address the real issues and stop looking for blame where it doesn’t belong.
First and foremost, drop the gun-crime/gun violent nomenclature. While you’re at it, you can stop calling semi-automatic rifles “assault rifles”. No responsible gun owner is going to take you seriously when you come out of the gate attacking.
Secondly, stop attacking the NRA as some big shill for the gun companies and treat them as the civil rights group that they are. The NRA is strong becuase they get their members informed on the proposed laws and get them to get out and vote. Last couple of elections cycles prove this. Look at what happened in Virginia this week. Look at the recall elections in Colorado recently.
My all volunteer state group formed earlier this year. We have been completely blown away by the interest in our organization, even in a very red, pro 2A state. In fact, one group that has become very involved in our work is physicians- trauma surgeons, pediatric surgeons, ER docs, and pediatricians. We are also working closely with law enforcement, educators and faith leaders. We all support the second amendment but also believe that there is common ground on gun law reform. This work is hard and it’s often terribly depressing. But, a day doesn’t go by that we don’t hear from grateful citizens and other stakeholders. Our organization, and others- at both the national and state level- are only growing stronger and more resolute.