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Still Marching: 25 Years After the Million Mom March
We didn’t march 25-years ago because we wanted to. We marched because we had to—children were dying. They still are.
May 11, 2025
I’d never seen anything like it: a mother standing quietly in the crowd, wearing a plain white T-shirt with a large photo of a young boy flashing a wide grin, a missing front tooth, and a superhero logo across his chest. Below the picture, in simple black letters, “Darius Carter 1993-1999 Forever Six.”
She was living my worst nightmare, her beautiful six-year-old son had been shot and killed. And there she was, surrounded by thousands of other moms wearing similar shirts, refusing to let her son be forgotten.
We were just feet from the massive, bright pink-and-white Million Mom March stage on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., listening to speakers demand Congress pass common sense gun laws. It was Mother’s Day 2000—25 years ago.
Darius’ mom and I stood among 750,000 parents, grandparents, and children holding signs, wearing Million Mom March shirts, and carrying photos of loved ones lost to gun violence. Across the country, hundreds of sister marches rose up in solidarity. For many, like me, it was our first protest.
Twenty-five years ago, we marched because we believed a safer world was possible.
But the Million Mom March was more than a protest. It was a collective outcry—stitched together by grief, fueled by hope, and driven by one belief: no child should die by gun violence. With Congress failing to act, mothers across the country rose up— angry, determined, demanding change.
I never imagined I would become an activist. But on April 20, 1999, I sat frozen in front of my TV, heart pounding, as the unthinkable unfolded at Columbine High School—my alma mater. My basketball coach, Dave Sanders, was killed along with twelve students.
Something inside me broke.
I went from a stay-at-home mom with a six- and two-year-old, juggling diapers, nap schedules, and tantrums, to a gun control activist with a new sense of purpose. The following year I organized and led a delegation from Oregon to the D.C. march.
The Million Mom March was a tipping point. It sparked national conversations about gun laws and helped launch a lasting movement—it later merged with the Brady Campaign, amplifying the call for reform. The march also introduced life-saving initiatives like the ASK (Asking Saves Kids) campaign, which urges parents to ask one critical question before their child visits a friend’s home: Is there an unlocked gun in the house? It’s a simple question that can prevent tragedy. Each year, unintentional shootings injure or kill an average of 363 children in the U.S.
In the 25-years since, the movement—propelled by that day on the National Mall—has helped reshaped the fight for gun safety in America. It ignited one of the first large-scale grassroots campaigns, led to the formation of Brady Campaign chapters, and paved the way for groups like Moms Demand Action. It also spurred a wave of state-level reforms: dozens of states passed child access prevention laws, expanded background checks, and enacted red flag laws—one of our most promising tools for temporarily removing firearms from individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others.
Despite the progress, the crisis has grown worse. In 2000, about 28,000 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S.—a staggering number. Today, it’s soared to over 48,000 per year—132 lives taken every day. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in America, surpassing car crashes, drownings, and cancer.
So what happened? Political courage withered and the gun lobby adapted.
They pushed through PLCCA, granting themselves sweeping immunity from lawsuits. They blocked federal funding for gun violence research. And in 2008, they won a Supreme Court ruling that redefined the Second Amendment as an individual right and struck down local gun safety laws.
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly didn’t help. It created a perfect storm: fear, isolation, distrust of government, and economic insecurity, all of which led to record-breaking gun sales. Millions of first-time gun buyers flooded the market, many without proper safety training. The gun industry profited from the fear, and communities are still paying the price.
Meanwhile, untraceable ghost guns flooded our communities, and leaders in many states chose to weaken gun laws rather than strengthen them. The gun industry seized the moment, expanding its appeal.
Twenty-five years ago, the typical gun buyer was a middle-aged man, and gun ownership was in decline. Today, the industry aggressively markets to women, young adults, and even parents—selling pink pistols to moms and tactical diaper bags to dads—casting gun ownership as a form of family empowerment. As sales rose, so did deaths.
So what now? We march again—in new ways, in new places, with the same resolve.
First, we confront the gun industry’s false promises to women and families. Marketing isn’t the problem; it’s the deadly narrative that owning a gun makes your home safer. It simply doesn’t. Research shows that a gun in the home increases the risk of homicide by 100%, suicide by 50%, and unintentional death significantly. I’ve witnessed how quickly an unsecured gun can turn a moment of fear, anger, or despair into an irreversible tragedy.
Second, we shift the national conversation from gun rights to gun responsibilities. Rights come with duties. An unsecured gun doesn’t just put your family at risk—it endangers neighbors, classmates, and entire communities. Only about 6% of guns used in crimes are stolen, yet those guns are far more likely to be used in violent crimes. And nearly 74% of school shooters under 18 got their gun from home or a relative. These aren’t just tragedies, they’re preventable. Responsible gun owners lock up their firearms, store ammunition separately, and support common-sense policies like mandatory reporting of lost or stolen guns, child access prevention laws, and required training. Supporting background checks and red flag laws isn’t anti-gun, it’s pro-responsibility.
Third, gun violence groups must work together.
In 2000, there was one widely recognized national organization: the Brady Campaign. Today there are many, but they often compete for funding, attention, and influence. It’s time to align, collaborate, and focus our collective energy against a fractured gun lobby whose primary strategy remains fear and bravado. Only by working together can we create sustained lasting change.
Finally, we must elevate and invest in the next generation of activists. Today’s young people have grown up with lockdowns and active shooter drills. They understand the stakes—viscerally. Their leadership was undeniable after the 2018 Parkland shooting, when survivors organized March for Our Lives, one of the largest single-day protests in U.S. history. Those of us who marched in 2000 must now step up and mentor, resource, and amplify this rising generation. Our kids’ lives depend on it.
Twenty-five years ago, we marched because we believed a safer world was possible. I often think of Carole Price, who bravely stood on stage that day and told us about her 13-year-old son, John—shot and killed while playing at a friend’s house. “It never occurred to me to ask about guns,” she said. “I wish I had asked the question.” Then she said something I’ll never forget: “It might be uncomfortable to ask the question. But I can tell you from personal experience, it’s a lot more uncomfortable to pick out a casket for your child.”
Even now—despite the setbacks, the rising death toll, and the political paralysis—I still believe. I believe in this next generation, in the power of parents and survivors, and in ordinary people who refuse to look away. We didn’t march 25-years ago because we wanted to. We marched because we had to—children were dying. They still are.
So we keep going. Because really, what other choice do we have?
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'May You Rot in Hell, Wayne': LaPierre Resigns From NRA Before Corruption Trial
The outgoing gun lobby chief cited health reasons for the move. One critic responded that "for decades, Wayne LaPierre functioned without a heart and half a brain so he must be in very dire straits."
Jan 05, 2024
Gun control advocates celebrated on Friday as Wayne LaPierre announced he is stepping down as chief executive of the National Rifle Association—a development that comes just days ahead of a New York corruption trial scheduled to start on Monday.
LaPierre, who has led the NRA for over three decades, is an individual defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James' case targeting the gun lobbying group. The 74-year-old cited health reasons for the resignation, which will take effect on January 31.
"For decades, Wayne LaPierre functioned without a heart and half a brain so he must be in very dire straits," quipped Shannon Watts, founder of the anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action.
Watts framed LaPierre's exit as a win for his fiercest critics, highlighting that Moms Demand Action "shined a light on his unethical, immoral, and corrupt misdeeds for over a decade."
"As a reminder, LaPierre used millions of NRA dollars to buy Italian suits, reward family and friends, pay for family vacations to the Bahamas. He mismanaged the NRA. And he may have violated charity laws," Watts added in a nod to the New York trial.
March for Our Lives noted Friday that James' case was initiated after the youth-led group "looked into the NRA's finances and wrote a letter to the NYAG about potentially illegal activity by the NRA."
"Thoughts and prayers, Wayne," added March for Our Lives, which formed after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) president and CEO Noah Bookbinder similarly said that "we've been focused for years on abuses by the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, including in a... complaint filed in 2020. His resignation today is overdue, but an important step."
The case in New York "is a civil lawsuit, so there's no risk of jail time or criminal penalties for LaPierre or the three others named in the suit," but if the NRA loses, it could mean leadership changes and more oversight of the gun group, NPR's Brian Mann explained earlier this week.
Los Angeles Times senior legal affairs columnist Harry Litman observed that LaPierre's resignation "perhaps suggests he's looking to try to settle the case." However, the state attorney general quickly pushed back against speculation that the strategy would work.
James said Friday that "the end of the Wayne LaPierre era at the NRA is an important victory in our case. LaPierre's resignation validates our claims against him, but it will not insulate him from accountability. We look forward to presenting our case in court."
In its statement about LaPierre, the NRA said that in response to James' allegations, its board "has undertaken significant efforts to perform a self-evaluation, recommended termination of disgraced 'insiders' and vendors who allegedly abused the association, and accepted reimbursement, with interest, for alleged excess benefit transactions from LaPierre, as reported in public tax filings."
LaPierre is set to be replaced by longtime NRA executive and head of general operations Andrew Arulanandam as interim CEO.
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NRA Bid to End Corruption Probe Fails in New York
New York Attorney General Letitia James has provided "ample evidence of malfeasance" at the gun rights group, a five-judge panel said.
Dec 28, 2023
A New York state court will move forward with a case brought by the state against the National Rifle Association, following an appeals court ruling on Thursday that rejected the powerful pro-gun group's claim that the probe violated its First Amendment rights.
A panel of five judges in the Appellate Division in Manhattan unanimously ruled that state Attorney General Letitia James has probable cause to investigate the NRA over allegations that it diverted millions of dollars to fund the lavish lifestyles of executives including Wayne LaPierre, its chief executive officer.
James sued the NRA in August 2020, saying executives also failed to obtain board approval for conflicts of interest and retaliated against whistleblowers who spoke out against allegations of financial misconduct. She is seeking an overhaul of the NRA's leadership, including the removal of LaPierre.
The appeals court said James has provided "ample evidence of malfeasance" at the organization, and has authority to enforce state laws governing nonprofits.
The NRA has claimed James' case against it is politically motivated. James unsuccessfully attempted to have the NRA dissolved through the court system in 2022.
The court on Thursday noted that other nonprofits have restructured their leadership, but the NRA has so far refused to do so.
The judge who ruled against dissolving the NRA, Justice Joel Cohen, will hear the corruption case on January 8.
In June, Cohen denied motions by the NRA that claimed James' investigation was unconstitutional and politically motivated, saying the NRA could not make those claims as a defense at the upcoming trial.
The NRA, James said at the time, has "used every tool and trick to try and avoid the consequences of their bad actions."
"I will continue to fight tirelessly," she added, "to bring the NRA and its senior executives to justice and ensure all people, companies, and not-for-profits adhere to the rule of law in New York."
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Disarming Domestic Abusers Can Protect Us All
A federal law banning those convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun is an approach supported by 81 percent of those self-identifying as Republicans and 91 percent of self-identified Democrats polled.
Nov 06, 2023
Before the Lewiston, Maine spree shooting suspect began voicing plans to “shoot up” his community, there was already a red flag that he might someday commit a mass shooting. The same red flag was also present well before a Florida Republican donor shot his wife and then killed himself in a restaurant parking lot three weeks ago in Palm Beach, Florida. The same red flag had been flapping wildly for years before a shooter took the life of a Judge in Maryland four weeks ago. Each of the shooters, now all dead by suicide, had the same red flag waving from their past: domestic violence. Indeed, one of the strongest indicators that someone will commit gun violence, particularly a mass shooting, is if that person has previously committed violence against an intimate partner or family member.
As City Attorney of San Diego, I have used our state’s red flag laws, also known as gun violence restraining orders (GVROs), to disarm over a thousand truly dangerous people, a third of them domestic abusers. Having this common sense intervention available to law enforcement and the public is one of the reasons why California also has 43% fewer gun deaths than the rest of the country. Since California’s red flag law went into effect seven years ago, GVROs have been credited with disarming 58 potential mass shooters who had threatened to commit large-scale gun violence. Of the individuals who had firearms temporarily removed with a GVRO, nearly a third had an assault-type weapon such as an AR or AK-style rifle.
The eponymous case of Zackey Rahimi demonstrates precisely why Red Flag laws are so critical to the safety of communities and illustrates how the gun lobby’s efforts make our country less safe.
Focusing on the use of GVROs to reduce the impacts of domestic violence is key to protecting those experiencing abuse, but it can also protect entire communities. In the U.S., domestic violence has been identified as a common factor in nearly 70 percent of fatal mass shootings, meaning the perpetrator first killed a partner or family member or had a history of domestic abuse. It was the case in Sandy Hook, it was the case in Majorie Stillman Douglas High School, it was the case in Robb Elementary, it was the case in Pulse NIghtclub, and it was the case in the most recent spree shooting in Lewiston. The use of GVROs and Domestic Violence Restraining Orders (DVROs) in cases of domestic violence is constitutionally consistent with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, next month, the Supreme Court will hear United States v. Rahimi, which examines whether federal law can prohibit someone subject to a qualifying domestic violence restraining order from having a gun.
The eponymous case of Zackey Rahimi demonstrates precisely why Red Flag laws are so critical to the safety of communities and illustrates how the gun lobby’s efforts make our country less safe. In United States v. Rahimi, Rahimi pled guilty in 2021 to possessing guns in violation of a federal law, 18 USC § 922(g)(8), that makes it a crime to possess guns when you are the subject of a qualifying domestic violence restraining order.
Rahimi had such a protective order against him because of his actions against his ex-girlfriend, with whom he has a young child, and after he was involved in six separate shooting incidents around Arlington, Texas, a search of his bedroom turned up a pistol with an extended magazine and a semi-automatic rifle. A federal grand jury indicted him for possessing the guns, but his lawyers challenged the constitutionality of prosecuting him. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately sided with Rahimi, ruling that the Second Amendment prevents the government from barring individuals subject to qualifying domestic violence protective orders from possessing a gun. The U.S. Solicitor General’s Office appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
Americans overwhelmingly want restrictions on gun ownership in domestic violence scenarios. Indeed, a federal law banning those convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun is an approach supported by 81 percent of those self-identifying as Republicans and 91 percent of self-identified Democrats polled. The issue the public has with red flag laws isn’t a lack of support for them but rather a lack of awareness of them. Most Americans in the 21 states with red flag laws are unaware this powerful, relatively new crisis intervention tool is available to disarm a dangerous situation. Though gun violence restraining orders had been available in California for five years, two-thirds of the Californians surveyed had no knowledge of them. As we desperately search for solutions, spreading awareness on how the public can use these laws right now may be the fastest and most effective way to address one of the most chronic patterns in our nation’s gun violence epidemic.
This op-ed was distributed by American Forum.
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Gun Deaths Among US Children Rose 87% in Last Decade, Study Shows
Children in the U.S. are "paying the price for inaction on gun violence with our lives," said Students Demand Action.
Oct 05, 2023
As Republican lawmakers and the gun lobby have fought tooth and nail against proposals to reduce access to firearms in the U.S. and ensure they are kept out of the hands of children over the last decade, the number of child deaths from gun violence has almost doubled, rising 87% between 2011-21.
Two doctors in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital were joined by the teenage daughter of one of the physicians in analyzing nonfatal and fatal injuries over a decade and published the study Thursday in the journal Pediatrics, run by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
The researchers found that nonfatal injuries from all causes, such as car crashes and household accidents, dropped by more than half between 2011-21, plummeting from 11,592 to 5,359 per 100,000 children. The rate of fatal injuries went up from 14.07 to 17.3 per 100,000.
"Firearms and drug poisonings are both exceptions to this, in that both the nonfatal injuries and the fatal injuries increased," Cordelia Mannix, a high school student in Concord, Massachusetts and the daughter of lead study author Dr. Rebekah Mannix, told The New York Times.
Just over 1,300 children under the age of 18 were killed by firearms in 2011, compared with 2,590 children in 2021.
The study comes a year after data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that guns had overtaken car accidents as the leading killer of U.S. children.
In other wealthy countries, noted the Times on Thursday, gun violence is not even within the top three causes of death among children.
The researchers wrote regarding both firearm injuries and deaths and those resulting from drug poisonings that "public health legislative support has lagged in these critical injury mechanisms."
"This is especially concerning given the high case fatality rate of these injury mechanisms in children," they wrote.
Dr. Mannix attributed reduced injuries and deaths from other causes to "public health interventions," telling ABC News that the U.S. in recent decades has been "improving motor vehicle safety, improving helmet technology, [and] childproofing."
The firearm industry in the last decade has lobbied against red flag laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of people at risk of harming themselves or others, universal background checks, and bans on the types of guns that have been increasingly used in mass shootings, such as AR-15s.
Mark Oliva, a spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Times that the group also opposes laws requiring manufacturers to make guns childproof and that "the group is not currently doing research on making firearms safer," despite rising deaths among children.
Meanwhile, said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Republican lawmakers "somehow maintain that their gun culture makes people safer."
Earlier this week, data from the Gun Violence Archive showed that more than 1,300 children and teenagers have been killed by a firearm so far this year, while the CDC found in April that gun deaths among children rose 50% in just two years, between 2019-21.
Students Demand Action, a youth-led gun control advocacy group, said Tuesday that U.S. children are "paying the price for inaction on gun violence with our lives."
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'The Future the GOP Wants for All of America': Texas Gun Law Unleashes Deadly Mayhem
"Who could've predicted arming folks without a license would result in this type of chaos?" one columnist asked sardonically.
Oct 27, 2022
"Insanity."
"Utter madness."
These are just some of the ways critics are describing Texas' new law allowing people to carry handguns in public without a permit--a Republican achievement that many local officials say has already led to a spike in spontaneous shootings in highly populated parts of the state.
"It seems like now there's been a tipping point where just everybody is armed."
In one high-profile case earlier this year, Tony Earls "pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston," The New York Times reported Wednesday. "Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her."
A grand jury declined to indict Earls, agreeing with his lawyer that "everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law."
As the Times noted, "The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders, and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license."
"Far from an outlier, Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns," the newspaper continued. "When Alabama's 'permitless carry' law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun."
"But Texas is the most populous state to do away with handgun permit requirements," the Times pointed out. "Five of the nation's 15 biggest cities are in Texas, making the permitless approach to handguns a new fact of life in urban areas to an extent not seen in other states."
"In the border town of Eagle Pass, drunken arguments have flared into shootings," the newspaper reported. "In El Paso, revelers who legally bring their guns to parties have opened fire to stop fights. In and around Houston, prosecutors have received a growing stream of cases involving guns brandished or fired over parking spots, bad driving, loud music, and love triangles."
"Who could've predicted arming folks without a license would result in this type of chaos?" columnist Wajahat Ali asked sardonically on social media.
Another person tweeted: "This is the future the GOP wants for all of America. Vote accordingly."
Peer-reviewed research published Wednesday showed that Americans are more likely to die early if they live in states dominated by right-wing lawmakers, and weak gun safety measures were among the factors driving up state-level mortality rates.
No statewide data on shootings has been released since the law--passed by Texas Republicans last spring--went into effect last September, but many law enforcement officials say the presence of firearms on the street has increased while handgun permit applications have decreased.
"It seems like now there's been a tipping point where just everybody is armed," said Sheriff Ed Gonzalez of Harris County, which includes Houston.
As the Times reported:
Recent debates over gun laws in Texas have not been limited to handgun licensing. After the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, gun control advocates have pushed to raise the age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle. And after the [United States] Supreme Court struck down New York's restrictive licensing program, a federal court in Texas found that a state law barring adults under 21 from carrying a handgun was unconstitutional. [Republican] Gov. Greg Abbott has suggested he agreed, even as the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the state police, is appealing.
Meanwhile, the Texas GOP's assault on gun control is just part of a "state-by-state legislative push," which "has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them," the Times reported.
With their June decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the high court's reactionary justices--most of whom were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote--struck down New York state's restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms in public. In the process, journalist Mark Joseph Stern argued, they enlarged the scope of the Second Amendment and made it harder for voters around the U.S. to protect communities "by enacting gun safety laws through the democratic process."
Calling it "a revolution in Second Amendment law," Stern wrote that "the Supreme Court has effectively rendered gun restrictions presumptively unconstitutional."
Before the ruling was handed down, journalist Jay Michaelson shed light on the right's "preposterous misreading of the Second Amendment, funded largely by gun manufacturers," in a Rolling Stone essay:
Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, until 2008, no federal court had held that the Second Amendment conveyed a right to own a gun. On the contrary, the Supreme Court clearly said that it didn't.
[...]
And what had once been a fringe view rejected by the Supreme Court--that the Second Amendment gave individuals a right to own guns--gradually became Republican Party gospel when the fringe took over the party. Former Chief Justice Warren Burger (a conservative appointed by Richard Nixon) described it as "a fraud on the American public."
Years before making it easier to carry handguns in public, Texas Republicans turned their state into one of the 29 nationwide with so-called "stand your ground" laws. These laws, also known as "shoot first" laws, upend the common law principle of a "duty to retreat," enabling individuals to use deadly force in purported self-defense as a first, rather than last, resort.
A study published earlier this year found that "shoot first" laws are associated with hundreds of additional firearm homicides each year.
Although Texas was one of the few states where the enactment of "shoot first" laws did not lead to a significant change in gun homicide rates between 2000 and 2016, it remains to be seen if its new permitless carry law will generate a surge in violent encounters between armed parties claiming "self-defense."
Last week in Florida, which became the first state to enact a "shoot first" law by statute in 2005, a man and his teenage son were arrested for attempted murder after allegedly shooting at a woman whom they suspected of being a burglar.
There are more guns than people in the U.S., and due to National Rifle Association-bankrolled Republicans' opposition to meaningful gun safety laws, it remains relatively easy for people to purchase and carry firearms in many states.
As a result, there have been thousands of mass shootings since 2012, and guns recently became the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States.
Studies have shown that gun regulations with high levels of public support, including bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, help reduce the number and severity of fatal mass shootings.
"We don't have to live this way," mom, teacher, and Democratic Minnesota House of Representatives candidate Erin Preese said Monday after a deadly school shooting in St. Louis. "Vote for lawmakers who will stand up to the gun lobby. Our kids' lives depend on it."
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Critics Say New Supreme Court Ruling Gives Gun Lobby 'Just What It Paid For'
"Today, the Supreme Court made it clear that it cares more about protecting the interests of the gun lobby than American lives."
Jun 23, 2022
The National Rifle Association's decades-long campaign against even the most basic and popular firearm regulations scored another victory Thursday when the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key New York state gun control law, a ruling that could spell doom for similar statutes across the country.
The NRA has spent big in recent years to fill state and federal courts--including the Supreme Court--with judges that are hostile to gun regulations. In 2017, the gun lobby dropped $1 million on ads supporting former President Donald Trump's nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch, a successful campaign that it repeated in subsequent years to ensure the confirmation of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
"The Court That Dark Money Built just handed a massive win to a gun industry that drives horrific violence in this country."
All three of those judges--along with Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts--supported Justice Clarence Thomas' new majority opinion invalidating New York's century-old restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms in public. The law required those applying for permits to carry guns outside the home to demonstrate "proper cause" to do so;
All three liberal justices opposed the decision.
Observers quickly voiced concern that the court's ruling could imperil gun control laws in other states and undermine local lawmakers' ability to combat mass shootings, which have taken hundreds of lives in the U.S. this year.
"The Court That Dark Money Built just handed a massive win to a gun industry that drives horrific violence in this country," Sen Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a statement. "The NRA, gun manufacturers, and their dark-money allies have spearheaded a 'project' to wipe all commonsense gun safety laws off the books."
Whitehouse warned that the Supreme Court's decision Thursday brings the gun lobby "a step closer" to eviscerating gun-safety measures nationwide.
"Now," the senator said, "more deadly weapons will flow into communities that have taken sensible steps to protect their citizens from violence."
The NRA, which assisted the legal challenge against the New York law, has worked tirelessly for years to mainstream an interpretation of the Second Amendment that conservative Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger once described as "a fraud on the American public." The gun lobby's efforts bore fruit in 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled for the first time in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own a gun.
As the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, the high court's ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen is "the most significant victory" for gun control opponents since 2008.
"It also reflects how President Trump's three appointees have shifted the court to the right," the newspaper noted. "In the last decade, the court had turned away challenges to the permitting laws in California and elsewhere. But the arrival of Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett created a majority to bolster the right to carry a gun."
"Gun control advocates had said they feared a high court ruling upholding the right to be armed in public could lead to a massive increase in the number of guns on the street in major cities," the Times added.
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre enthusiastically applauded the Supreme Court's ruling in a statement, calling the decision "a watershed win" and attributing it to the organization's long-running "fight" against gun-safety regulations.
Jason Ouimet, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said the lobbying group "has been at the forefront of this movement for over 30 years and was proud to bring this successful challenge to New York's unconstitutional law."
The Supreme Court's ruling came as the Senate worked to advance a gun-related legislative package that critics have decried as woefully inadequate given its exclusion of a ban on assault rifles, universal background checks, and other popular measures.
The bill, titled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, cleared a key procedural hurdle Thursday as advocates raised alarm over the far-reaching implications of the high court's decision.
"Today, the Supreme Court made it clear that it cares more about protecting the interests of the gun lobby than American lives," said Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America. "This isn't by accident; the lawmakers who confirmed the court's ultraconservative supermajority were bought and paid for by the NRA. This decision achieves one of their ultimate goals: bringing more guns into public spaces with no consideration for human life."
"Contrary to the opinions of the Supreme Court's ultraconservative majority, most Americans believe gun safety laws should be stronger, not weaker," Harvey added. "The gun violence epidemic in America threatens all of us--but it disproportionately endangers and kills Black, brown, and low-income Americans. To Donald Trump's wing of the Supreme Court, these lives are simply collateral damage."
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To Defeat NRA and Curb Gun Violence, Former Supreme Court Justice Says 'Repeal the 2nd Amendment'
"That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday's marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform."
Mar 27, 2018
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took to the New York Times op-ed pages on Tuesday to call for a full repeal of the Second Amendment, calling it a "relic of the 18th century" wielded by the gun lobby as a "propaganda weapon of immense power."
Though championing other demands for stricter gun control laws receiving attention amid outcry over mass shootings and gun violence, Stevens said "demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform."
"They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment," the judge argued. "That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday's marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform."
Though the amendment is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been able to deploy massive political and cultural influence over recent decades in order to twist its meaning and has pushed the notion that any regulation of firearms is an infringement of an unalienable right.
Stevens reminded readers of the views of former Chief Justice Warren Burger, who led the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. Burger said in 1991 that the NRA's efforts amounted to "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
"There wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment," if he were writing the Bill of Rights in the present day, said Burger at the time.
Amid the dissent of Stevens and three other justices, in 2008 the Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment should be understood to guarantee individual civilians the right to bear arms.
"Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.'s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option," wrote Stevens. "It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States--unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence."
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Three Strategies to Beat the NRA
Gun safety advocates who until now have relied largely on traditional lobbying need to broaden their strategy to include partnerships with gun owners and civil disobedience.
Jun 25, 2016
On Wednesday, Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights hero, led a sit-in of fellow House Democrats on the House floor to demand action on gun control legislation. Lewis strode to the lectern and called on his colleagues to "occupy this floor." Soon, about two-dozen lawmakers gathered around him as he spoke. As more Democrats came into the House chamber, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, they joined him, sitting with their legs crossed on the blue-carpeted floor. They carried picket signs with photos of the victims of gun violence and sang "We Shall Overcome," changing the words to include "We shall pass a bill someday." Some members cried. The protest lasted 25 hours. By sitting down, they were standing up to the National Rifle Association.
House Speaker Paul Ryan tried to shut down the insurrection, even going so far as to declare a recess to cut off the official television feed. But the protesters used Twitter's Periscope service to film the rebellion and fed it to C-SPAN, which in defiance of House rules that prohibit cameras on the floor when the chamber isn't in session, broadcast the sit-in anyway.
The protesting politicians were saying "enough is enough." They used this dramatic action to express what many Americans feel: We can no longer tolerate the obscene levels of carnage in our streets, schools, universities, houses of worship, shopping centers, and other sites. We need to join the rest of the civilized world in enacting reasonable measures to keep military-style weapons (like the AR-15 that Omar Mateen used in the Orlando nightclub massacre) out of the hands of civilians, and to prohibit the sale of guns to people with criminal records, mental illness, and terrorist affiliations.
By resorting to civil disobedience, the House members were acknowledging that traditional efforts to push for stronger gun laws haven't worked. Although polls show that a significant majority of Americans support tougher gun laws, their voices have been drowned out by the NRA. Along with gun and ammunition manufacturers, the NRA is responsible for the United States having the weakest gun laws of any modern democracy. In fact, the NRA only represents a tiny proportion of all gun owners, and most of them don't even agree with the fanatic views of the group's leadership--especially those of NRA head Wayne LaPierre, who earned $985,885 in 2014. But the NRA is able to mobilize a small but vocal number of people to support its extremist views, with the financial support of the gun manufacturers who profit from weak gun laws.
To successfully release the NRA's political choke-hold on Congress and on state legislatures, Americans need bold new strategies like this week's House floor sit-in. Until now, gun control advocates have largely stuck to one strategy, what I call polite moral outrage and lobbying. This strategy has made some inroads, but has failed to force enough politicians to vote for tougher laws. A second approach--a movement of reasonable gun owners for reasonable gun control--could have a huge impact by creating an alternative to the NRA. Finally, gun safety advocates need a mass movement of civil disobedience. That's what Democrats were demonstrating on the House floor this week. To be successful, this third strategy must include divestment from gun manufacturers.
These three approaches aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, the nation won't break the back of the NRA, and win stronger public safety measures, until all three strategies are at work at the same time. Here's how this one-two-three strategy would work:
Polite Vigils, Prayers, and Lobbying
Americans are tired of the carnage created by gun-related violence. In 2013, there were 33,636 deaths from firearm violence in the United States, including 11,208 homicides--31 a day. Firearms were used in 69.6 percent of all homicides that year. Many more individuals are injured--some seriously and permanently--by gun violence. America's gun death rate is far above that of other Western industrialized nations. This epidemic of gun violence is tied to the easy availability of firearms and weak gun violence prevention laws.
After each mass killing--in Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Charleston, Aurora, Roseburg, Phoenix, and now the deadliest of all, Orlando--people come together to express their sympathy for the victims, their anger at the senseless violence, and their determination to bring about change.
Often led by the families and friends of the victims, citizens organize prayer services, candlelight vigils, and marches. Clergy, law enforcement officials, and community residents pledge to bring about change. They write emails to and visit their elected officials--city council members, state legislators, and members of Congress--some of whom promise to take action. Some newspapers publish editorials voicing sympathy, criticizing the NRA, and demanding tougher laws.
These events often spawn new local groups. One of the most effective is the Newtown Action Alliance, a volunteer grassroots organization formed after a gunman killed 20 school children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. It brings members to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress and sponsors an annual vigil for the victims of gun violence at the Washington National Cathedral. Po Murray, one of its founders, says that its goal is to "change the culture, change the conversation, and change the laws in order to end gun violence."
In between these upsurges of activism, local and national gun control organizations continue to do the hard and important work of keeping their cause in the news. Groups like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Violence Policy Center, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence conduct valuable research on the causes of gun violence, lobby public officials, educate the public about policy solutions, and alert people about pending bills so they can contact their political representatives. Compared with the NRA, these organizations operate on shoe-string budgets.
In this image from video provided by House Television, House Speaker Paul Ryan attempts to bring the House into session as rebellious Democrats stage an extraordinary all-day sit-in on the House floor to demand votes on gun-control bills.
Recently, they've been joined by some influential new players. In 2014, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, pledged to spend $50 million to jump-start a nationwide gun safety movement. He invested in strengthening existing groups and started Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which soon joined with another new group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, to become Everytown for Gun Safety. Bloomberg is pouring money into political races to defeat candidates who oppose reasonable gun safety laws and are in bed with the NRA. He has recognized that the battleground over gun control is primarily at the state level and has spent big bucks trying to get states to adopt stronger gun rules and to stop efforts to weaken existing laws. The effort has included some major successes, including Colorado's passage of universal background checks and other gun control measures, and some defeats, including Everytown's failure to stop the Maine legislature from passing a law to allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
This year, Bloomberg's Independence USA PAC is gearing up to try to defeat Republican Senate candidates who voted to oppose federal background checks and other gun control measures. Also emerging as a political and organizational gun safety powerhouse is Americans for Responsible Solutions, founded by former House Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, of Arizona, after she was shot by a would-be assassin in 2011. Earlier this month, Giffords' husband, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, teamed up with retired U.S. Army general and former CIA director David Petraeus to to launch yet another new group, Veterans Coalition for Common Sense.
This strategy built around moral outrage, lobbying, and media can be effective. Certainly it has influenced public opinion. A CNN/ORC poll released this week found that 92 percent of American voters support "a background check on anyone attempting to purchase a gun," with only 8 percent opposing. The same poll found that 85 percent of American voters supported "preventing people on the U.S. government's Terrorist Watch List or no-fly list from owning guns," with only 14 percent in opposition. Polls also consistently show that a significant majority of Americans support laws to prevent people with mental illness or criminal records from purchasing guns, the creation of a federal database to track gun sales, a ban on semi-automatic weapons, and a prohibition on the sale of assault-style weapons to civilians.
But public opinion, on its own, has little political influence. It has to be mobilized and organized--not just during episodic upsurges of moral outrage but on an ongoing basis. In this arena, these groups have until now been outgunned by the NRA, which drowns them out because it is better organized and more fanatical. Yes, in recent years, some cities and a handful of states have adopted stronger laws, but more states, like Maine, have actually weakened their existing laws. And in terms of getting something done in Washington, the strategy of traditional lobbying and media campaigns has been almost a complete failure. That's where the two other strategies come in.
Gun Owners for Reasonable Gun Control
Few activists within the mainstream gun control movement are themselves gun owners. But guns are a large part of American culture. Most Americans don't object to the manufacture and sale of rifles used in hunting, a sport that millions of Americans enjoy in relative safely. That's why strategy two is built on leveraging the influence of gun owners who think the NRA is too far outside the mainstream. A growing number of gun owners and enthusiasts want the services that the NRA offers--such as safety courses and consumer information about guns--but don't like the NRA's extremist agenda. So the time is ripe for an organization of reasonable gun owners for reasonable gun control.
The NRA was founded after the Civil War to advocate for hunter training, marksmanship, conservation of nature, and gun safety. It was a sportsmen's club, not a political lobby group. In 1977, extremists within the NRA hijacked the organization, strengthened its ties to gun manufacturers, and vowed to fight all gun regulations.
That's when LaPierre joined the organization. He's worked for the NRA since 1978 and served as its top official since 1991. He is the organization's hit man when it comes to intimidating elected officials to oppose any kind of sensible gun control laws. The NRA even defends the right of Americans to carry concealed weapons in bars, churches, schools, universities, and elsewhere. This poses a huge threat to police and civilians alike. For example, one in five law enforcement officers slain in the line of duty is killed with an assault weapon.
The NRA has two knee-jerk responses to the epidemic of gun violence.The first is that the Second Amendment gives all Americans the right to possess guns of all kinds--not just hunting rifles, but machine guns and semi-automatics. Efforts to restrict gun sales and ownership are, according to the NRA, an assault on our constitutional freedoms. The second is the cliche that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." To the NRA, weak gun laws have nothing to do with America's exorbitant number of gun-related killings. This contradicts research compiled by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence documenting that states with stronger gun laws have fewer gun-related deaths. States with the weakest laws are also the source of the most crime guns, even in those states with tougher laws.
Most gun-related deaths are committed by people who purchase their weapons legally. Others purchase or steal them illegally, but their ability to access guns is due to lax gun ownership laws. The NRA's job is to make it easier for people to buy and use guns. And so far it has been very successful. Since the 1994 assault-weapons ban expired in 2004, Congress hasn't enacted any major gun regulations.
Under LaPierre's leadership, the NRA has strengthened its ties to the gun manufacturers. The NRA's board includes many gun industry representatives, like Stephen Hornady, whose company, Hornady Manufacturing, sells armor-piercing bullets under the slogan "Accurate. Deadly. Dependable." The profits of these corporations (such as Remington Outdoor, Beretta, Sturm Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Olin), and the profits of Walmart (the nation's largest seller of guns and ammunition) and other retailers, grow when there are few restrictions on the sale and ownership of guns and ammunition.
"There is a lot of profit to be made for all of this sorrow, all of this death, and all of this destruction," explained Dr. Sheldon Teperman, director of trauma surgery at the Jacobi Medical Center in New York City, who routinely deals with gunshot victims.
LaPierre has also linked the NRA to the far right, including the Tea Party. LaPierre is a regular presence at gatherings of extreme right-wing groups, whose paranoid warnings about the threat of tyranny and Obama's secret plan to confiscate all guns are meant to scare Americans into buying more guns and joining the NRA. For example, in a speech at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, LaPierre said that Obama was part of a "conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep." Obama's plan, he said, was to "erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution." Donald Trump is echoing this NRA mantra on the campaign trail with his attacks on Hillary Clinton as a Second Amendment foe.
LaPierre speaks for the ultra-right-wing "survivalist" wing of the NRA, whose members and activities overlap with racist hate groups who believe they need to prepare for an armed struggle against their own government. He is a brilliant tactician and strategist who is able to marshal the loud voices of a relatively small group of people to stymie reasonable gun control laws.
"We must declare that there are no shades of gray in American freedom. It's black and white, all or nothing," LaPierre said at an NRA meeting. "You're with us or against us."
In fact, only a tiny proportion of the nation's gun owners are NRA members. About 90 million Americans own guns. The NRA claims to have about four million members. Even if they aren't exaggerating, that is less than 5 percent of all gun owners.
A national Public Policy Polling survey of gun owners, conducted last November, found that 83 percent support criminal background checks on all sales of firearms, while only 14 percent oppose them. Gun owner support is strongly bipartisan, with 90 percent of Democrats and 81 percent of Republicans endorsing background checks. Among gun owners, 66 percent say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports background checks. Only 29 percent feel that the NRA represents their thinking when it comes to background checks. Gun owners also say the NRA is out of touch with them on these issues. The NRA's positions, in fact, are not only at odds with those of most Americans and most gun owners, but even of many NRA members. The poll found that 72 percent of NRA members support background checks.
So why is the NRA so powerful? Gun ownership is highly concentrated. Twenty percent of gun owners possess about 65 percent of the nation's guns. The NRA is able to mobilize a small but very rabid and vocal group of gun owners--as well as owners of gun shops--to attend rallies, write letters to newspapers and comments on blog sites, and contact elected officials.
Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the nonprofit Violence Policy Center, says that the NRA's most vocal members are no more than a quarter of its members--perhaps 750,000 people--for whom "guns are their life." They can make lots of noise but they don't represent most NRA members who don't fall for LaPierre's extremism.
Many gun owners are fed up with the NRA, but efforts to create an alternative gun organization have met with little success so far. One such group, the American Hunters and Shooters Association, began in 2005 and lasted for five years. Its president, Ray Schoenke, a one-time Washington Redskins football player and a successful businessman, had wanted AHSA to bridge the gap between urban liberals and rural gun owners. But the group focused almost entirely on supporting pro-gun control political candidates, did not provide services to its members, and could not sustain itself financially.
Last October, two days after the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Mark Carman--an evangelical Christian, former police officer and military veteran, and a Republican from Nashville, where he now works as a music producer--posted a video on his Facebook page titled, "I Love My Guns--Responsible Gun Owners." He dangled his Ruger SR9 in front of the camera. "I like it," he said. "I love firearms. I do." Then he called for the expansion of background checks and the creation of a gun registry.
Within 10 days, more than 1.8 million viewers had watched Carman's video. So he created a website and a Facebook page called the American Coalition for Responsible Gun Ownership (ACRGO)--to challenge the gun lobby. According to its website, the group seeks "responsible gun ownership legislation to assure that firearm owners shall engage with reasonable due diligence in the purchase, sale, possession and/or use of all firearms."
The following month, a delegation from ACRGO--along with members of Gun Owners for Gun Control, organized by the progressive Netroots group MoveOn.org Civic Action--came to Washington, met with White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett and members of Congress, and delivered 1.1 million signatures on a petition calling on Congress to take bold action in closing some of the loopholes in the firearms purchase process.
The response to Carman's video suggests that there is a potentially large constituency of gun owners for reasonable gun control, but Carman isn't interested in building a new organization. "I was totally unprepared for what happened," he explained. ACRGO, he said, "is just me, a website, and a Facebook page."
A moderate group could not only steal some members from the NRA but, more importantly, recruit unaffiliated gun owners who don't support the NRA's close ties with the gun industry and don't think the NRA speaks for them. It could grow into a kind of AARP for gun owners--one that provides services (such as gun safety courses) as well as mobilize its members to support reasonable gun laws and candidates who voice similar views--and poses a challenge to the NRA.
In fact, the NRA's incendiary rhetoric has alienated many of its members.
David Taylor, a retired Army officer and a two-time All-American in rifle shooting from Roswell, Georgia, was part of the delegation that met with Valerie Jarrett last November. "I was a member of the NRA for more than 10 years," Taylor explained, "but resigned my membership when its agenda turned from promoting gun safety and responsible ownership to one of uncompromising opposition to any kind of gun control."
Taylor follows in the footsteps of President George H.W. Bush. In 1995, Bush withdrew as a Life Member of the NRA after LaPierre sent an incendiary fundraising letter sent to the group's members, claiming that if assault weapons were banned, "jack-booted government thugs" would "break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure or kill us." We need more NRA members to publicly follow the example of David Taylor and Poppy Bush.
Civil Disobedience and Divestment
Throughout American history, all successful movements have included both reformers and radicals. Reformers work "inside" the system to bring about modest but important changes. Radicals work "outside" the system to push for more dramatic improvements. In truth, both are needed and, in most movements, reformers and radicals work together. In fact, ideas that were once considered dangerously radical--women's suffrage, Social Security, the minimum wage, and consumer protection laws--later became considered common sense. Radicals not only have bolder ideas but, in addition to such established tactics as voting and lobbying, they employ bolder actions like civil disobedience and boycotts. The successes of the women's suffrage, labor, environmental, civil rights, and LGBT movements all utilized these audacious tactics.
Last week, in the wake of the Orlando massacre, The Nation published an editorial entitled, We Need a Radical Movement for Gun Control. "When the normal political system fails," the editors wrote, "it's time to act up!"
House Democrat John Lewis, now 76, knows something about this. During the 1960s, as a young college student, he risked his life in the cause of civil rights. As an elected official, he has continued to put his body on the line for social justice. He is both a reformer and a radical, an insider and an outsider. He understands that there are times when candlelight vigils, prayer services, and well-mannered lobbying aren't enough. That's why he persuaded a number of his House colleagues--most of whom had never before engaged in any kind of protest--to join him on the House floor to express their frustration and anger at the failure of the Republicans (and a few Democrats) to embrace even modest gun safety legislation.
Lewis clearly hopes that this high-profile protest--which generated enormous media attention because of its dramatic and unusual show of conscience--will catalyze a wider protest movement that includes civil disobedience. Surely Lewis has in mind the four African American college students who, on February 1, 1960, sat in at a lunch counter at the Woolworth's five-and-dime story and refused to leave in order to protest Jim Crow racial segregation. They had no idea if their sit-in would work, but they had faith that their action would encourage others to join them. Their action inspired students at other colleges across the South to follow their example. By the end of March 1960, sit-ins had spread to 55 cities in 13 states. Many students, mostly black but also white, were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct, or disturbing the peace. One of them was Lewis, then a student at Fisk University in Nashville.
At the time, even many liberals--black and white--thought that the protesters were too radical. But their actions galvanized a new wave of civil rights protests. That April, several hundred sit-in activists formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which became the "radical" wing of the civil rights movement. Its growing base of supporters played key roles in the freedom rides, marches, and voter registration drives that eventually led Congress to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
We need a comparable nonviolent protest movement now to stir things up on gun safety and challenge the influence of the NRA. There are already signs that a radical wing of the gun control movement is taking hold. On Tuesday, 18 activists affiliated with the peace group Code Pink were arrested after protesting outside the NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. The event came hours after the Senate had rejected proposals from both parties designed to keep extremists from acquiring guns and to require background checks for many firearms purchases.
The Orlando shooting has catalyzed the LGBT community to get more involved in the gun issue. It is likely that their involvement will inject new energy and its passion for civil disobedience into the gun control movement. We could soon see more civil disobedience actions at NRA's offices as well as similar protests at gun shows, the headquarters of major gun manufacturers, the homes of the CEOs of major gun makers, NRA board members, and NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, and at the offices of Congress members and state legislators who are under the thumb of the NRA.
Elected officials would be welcome to participate, but for such a strategy to be effective, it has to enlist ordinary Americans, including people who own guns, people who have been injured by gun violence, and the families of those who were killed in mass shootings and by the more mundane but still-deadly rash of daily street murders.
The crisis has gotten too serious. It is time to act.
As with all social justice campaigns involving civil disobedience, such actions might invite criticism that they are "going too far." But such protests force people to pay attention, to think about an issue they had previously ignored, and often to revise their views. They also galvanize more people to take action so that the political snowball gets bigger and bigger. Such actions, which sometimes involve some people getting arrested, help give issues a sense of moral urgency. They state clearly that we can't continue with business as usual.
For those reluctant to participate in public protest, civil disobedience can take another form. Many movements have employed boycotts and divestment strategies to challenge powerful institutions to change their policies. The most famous boycott took place in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to comply with that city's segregated bus seating laws. For over a year, citizens boycotted the buses, which eventually helped dismantle the city's segregation law. In the 1970s, many Americans boycotted grapes, wine, and lettuce produced by non-union workers to put pressure on big agricultural growers to improve working conditions and wages for migrant farmworkers, a campaign led by Cesar Chavez.
Divestment is another boycott strategy. The idea is to get pension funds, universities, churches, and other institutions to remove their investments from corporations engaged in socially irresponsible activities. In the 1980s, divestment from companies doing business in South Africa effectively helped dismantle that country's racial apartheid system. Today, many environmental activists--including students at over 300 colleges and universities--are pushing their institutions to unload their stocks in energy companies that promote fossil fuels that are destroying our planet. Several major institutions--including Stanford, Columbia, and Syracuse universities--have already done so.
The same strategy can exert pressure on the gun lobby. A group called the Campaign to Unload has been working in the trenches with people affiliated with universities, churches, union, and government pension funds to promote gun industry divestment. The effort has won some significant victories.
In 2013, the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), both large public pension funds, moved to divest from manufacturers of assault weapons. That year, a pension fund for Chicago public employees (the Municipal Employees Annuity and Benefit Fund) voted to withdraw its holdings in three companies--Freedom Group, Sturm Ruger, and Smith & Wesson--that manufacture assault weapons, while the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, which has $9.5 billion in assets, voted to divest its investments with gun makers. Last December, Letitia James, New York City's elected public advocate, sought to pressure TD Bank--which provided $280 million in financing to Smith & Wesson--to cut its ties with the gun manufacturer. In a letter to the bank, James wrote, "If you want to do business with New York City, you can't be in bed with companies that manufacture the agents that kill our children and families."
In 2014, at the urging of faculty and students, Occidental College in Los Angeles became the first higher education institution to pledge to stay away from any investments in companies that manufacture military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines for general public sale. Students at the University of California--which has an endowment of $88 billion, one of the largest in the country--have asked the university's board of regents to follow Occidental's example. The regents have never voted on an official policy, but according Dianne Klein, media director for the University of California's Office of the President, the university has sold all is stock in firearms manufacturers and distributors.
Earlier this year two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs--Keywon Chung and Michael Shilman--created a new tool, Goodbye Gun Stocks, that makes it easy to find out if a retirement fund or investment portfolio contains stocks from gun and ammo manufacturers and retailers. The tool covers more than 12,000 stock funds (and Thrifty Savings Plans for federal employees) based on Securities and Exchange Commission data, which amounts to $5.9 trillion in investments. Over $17 billion of those assets are invested in the consumer gun industry--about 35 percent of U.S. stock funds. You can type in the name of an investment fund, and it will show the percentage invested in nine public gun-associated companies--Olin, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Vista Outdoor, Big 5 Sporting Goods, Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, Sportsman's Warehouse, and Walmart. The tool also helps find alternative funds (with comparable or even better performance) that have no--or fewer--gun stocks. It provides side-by-side comparisons of different funds in terms of their investment in gun stocks. The Vanguard funds, for example, hold $5.7 billion in these stocks compared with Fidelity's $791 million.
A parallel group, Unload Your 401K, lets you enter your 401K provider to see whether it contain gun stocks. The group urges Americans to demand that the managers of their 401K portfolios (such as Fidelity, Prudential, Vanguard, and Merrill-Lynch) divest from gun stocks. Since it launched its divestment campaign against manufacturers of assault weapons and high-capacity ammo clips, ten hedge funds and money managers have divested their gun holdings, valued at $170 million.
If more institutions and individuals withdraw their investments from gun and ammo manufacturers that profit from the violence that is destroying our communities, particularly low-income and minority neighborhoods, it would pressure these corporations to change their practices. It would also compel more elected officials to side with the views of ordinary Americans and not the gun lobby.
"For years, the NRA dominated the political playing field on the gun issue," said Mark Glaze, president of the Campaign to Unload. "It will take years--and several election cycles--to dismantle the NRA's influence."
The Orlando massacre may be a turning point in galvanizing a stronger movement for sensible gun control. Three strategies--traditional advocacy, mobilization of sensible gun owners, and civil disobedience--point the way. Even as we grieve, we can move forward. We can stop the madness.
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What Matters More than the NRA's Money
"Passion counts for a lot in politics," says an ex-state senator who has been on the receiving end.
Jun 17, 2016
Another disturbed young man with a high-powered weapon. Another massacre. And once again, the question: Why, with polls showing broad majorities of Americans favoring tighter restrictions on who can purchase firearms and what types of weaponry that can be offered for sale, have lawmakers refused to act?
If you want to understand the answer, don't look first at the data -- though we will get to that, and the numbers are important and enlightening. First listen to John Morse, a Colorado Democrat who has taken on the gun lobby and paid the price.
As the former president of his state's Senate, Morse knows firsthand that gun-rights advocates "feel very passionately" about their issue. Passion counts for a lot in politics," says Morse. We have not been able to generate the same passion on the side of common sense."
Nobody can attest to that more eloquently than Morse. In 2013, shortly after another disturbed young man opened up on a Denver suburban theater audience in 2012, killing 12 and injuring 70, he helped shepherd a package of gun-control measures through Colorado's legislature. Five months after the bills passed, Morse was out of a job, one of two state senators ousted in a recall campaign ramped up by gun rights enthusiasts.
Both sides of the gun debate applied plenty of money to the highly symbolic race, and while it's impossible to get a true handle on the spending because of the involvement of dark-money groups, whose bottom lines are never made public, there's some indications that the gun-control forces may even have had the spending advantage. Morse says the key factor was not the amount of money but the strategy that determined when and how it was spent.
A $350,000 infusion from billionaire gun-control advocate Michael Bloomberg less than a month before Election Day was "way too little, way too late," said Morse. He identified the key contribution as a much smaller amount that gun rights advocates paid to get signatures on the petition that made Morse's recall possible. "They threw in $60,000," said Morse. "You pay $5 for a signature. Boom. Done." In some cases, according to paperwork filed with the Colorado Secretary of State's office by the El Paso Freedom Defense Committee, which was gathering the signatures, the remuneration wasn't in cash. Of the more than $61,000 collected by the group over a period of several months, most were in-kind donations, including rounds of ammunition for door prizes and an "AR-15 foregrip."
Thousands of signatures on the petitions were tossed out as forgeries and Morse is convinced his campaign could have found more, but "I ran out of time," he says. The bottom line is that "The right amount of money at the right time can do amazing things," says the ex-lawmaker, who now runs an accounting practice in Denver.
There's no question that the gun lobby has a proven record of applying its bucks with a bang: Pro-gun groups have massively outspent those who favor stricter gun control on a federal level. According to figures compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the National Rifle Association and its allies have made $37.3 million in contributions to candidates for Congress and the White House over the past 26 years. The total for gun-control groups over the same period: $2.4 million. The disparity is the same on the lobbying front: CRP's data shows that gun-rights organizations routinely outspend those on the other side of the debate by a factor of 10.
Nor is it coincidental that the two men who have most to say about what gets to the floor of the two congressional chambers, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) were among the biggest recipients of pro-gun money in the last election cycle.
Less obvious (because it's a lot harder to track) but at least as important: The NRA's activity in state capitals, where most of the laws governing firearms are enacted. An analysis of the campaign finance database in Florida, where Omar Mateen was easily able to acquire the high-power weaponry he used to gun down patrons at Orlando's Pulse nightclub this week, shows the NRA spent more than $4.3 million trying to influence statewide and state legislative elections in Florida during the past 20 years. Aside from multiple five-figure contributions to party political committees, the most eye-popping amounts go to marketing and direct-mail firms, another hallmark of the NRA's grass-roots strategy. The analysis of the Florida campaign finance data was done for BillMoyers.com by Bob Lannon, a civic hacker who runs Influence USA, an all-volunteer project that aims to put state and local campaign finance and lobbying numbers into a national database.
"We cower and follow the path of least resistance." -- John Morse
Morse attests to the impact of such efforts. Every time a gun bill would come up in Colorado, "I probably got 7,000 emails," said the former senator, who represented about 145,000. There was a catch: Of those emails "maybe 150" had been sent by Morse's actual constituents. But the former Senate president said it was a distinction that not all of his colleagues appreciated. When the Colorado legislature took up gun-control legislation, Morse said, "the NRA did a great job of getting people to show up. They drove around the Capitol for four hours honking horns. They had people willing to do that."
Meanwhile, on the gun-control side of the issue, "I got meh, maybe 25 emails," Morse recalls, adding: "Even though the NRA represents a small part of the population, they do so very loudly and very effectively." That impresses people who regularly have to seek reelection. "So we cower and follow the path of least resistance," he says.
Morse speaks as a gun owner. A former Colorado Springs cop, he says he keeps a loaded service revolver at home just in case he ever has to defend himself. But he feels as though he's more qualified than most to do that. "I can outshoot 99.1 percent of the people on the planet," he said. "Seriously. I am a crack shot." None of that helped protect him from the reality of the political passion gap. In that recall election Morse lost by 319 votes, he says: "Eighty percent of the registered voters in my district did not cast a ballot."
Despite its success in getting rid of him, the NRA has been unable to remove the laws Morse helped enact. He doesn't take too much comfort in that. "Those bills weren't really that profound," he said, although one does limit the size of magazines in Colorado. "What I say to people on my side is, 'C'mon. We've got to show up and stand up,'" Morse says. "Most of the country agrees with us. We need to convince our people to show up and take a stand."
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