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Update: Eleven days after the start of this campaign, Giffords announced a new policy supporting a ban on assault weapons. Specifically, Giffords called to register all existing assault weapons with the federal government under the National Firearms Act (the same way we do for machine guns and silencers) and, moving forward, either ban the sale of assault weapons or require every assault weapon sold to be registered under the NFA. Then, on March 12, 2018, Everytown for Gun Safety/Moms Demand Action announced support for prohibiting the sale of assault weapons.
There has been a momentous shift in the national conversation about guns since the surviving students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School began their incredible advocacy for an Assault Weapons Ban in the wake of the mass shooting at their school. For them, this advocacy is literally a matter of life and death. Seventeen students and teachers at Stoneman Douglas were shot and killed by a gunman with a semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle; 15 others were injured. The students know they—or any student in America—could be next.
The students have called for assault weapons ban legislation to be introduced and passed in both the Florida state legislature and the U.S. Congress. But the gun control group that is helping the students organize the March for Our Lives on March 24 in the nation’ s capital, former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, does not support a ban on assault weapons and never has. [This includes Everytown’s grassroots affiliate, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.] The same goes for Giffords (formerly Americans for Responsible Solutions), founded by Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly.
After Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, San Bernardino, Orlando, Columbine, and all the other countless shootings in which a military-style weapons have been used to kill Americans en masse, it is long past time for the two largest groups in the gun control movement to support federal and state bans on assault weapons. By failing to do so, they are limiting the intensity of gun control advocacy and signaling to the gun lobby that GVP advocates can be distracted and dissuaded with deeply flawed compromise legislation that ultimately goes nowhere (i.e., the Manchin-Toomey amendment).
Please contact Everytown and Giffords through one of the channels below and give them the following message (personalized to your liking):
I was shocked to learn that your organization does not support banning assault weapons. After Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, and so many other grotesque mass-casualty shootings, it is long past time for your organization to support bans on assault weapons at the federal and state level. We have made rapid and remarkable progress under the leadership of the student survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School because of the intensity of their advocacy. They do not flinch or apologize in calling for tough, popular laws like the assault weapons ban that we so desperately need to end this carnage. You need to follow their example. We cannot afford to return to the days of begging for table scraps and getting nothing in return (i.e., Manchin-Toomey). The potential to save lives now is too great. If you wish to retain my support, I want to see you calling for assault weapons bans at the federal and state level immediately.
Everytown for Gun Safety
Email: info@everytown.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Everytown/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Everytown
Giffords
Email: info@giffords.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giffords/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/giffordscourage
Hashtag: #AWBNow
Once you have contacted Everytown and Giffords, click the orange banner above to report taking action!
Thank you for taking action to get the two best resourced gun control groups on board with legislation that is common-sense, popular and the focus of the tremendous advocacy of the Parkland survivors. If we are all on the same page, the opportunity to save lives in this moment is boundless.