“In a recent Morning Consult survey, 62% of Democrats wanted to hear the presidential candidates discuss the issue of gun violence that plagues our nation and schools.”
— German Lopez, Vox.com
Gun violence beat out healthcare/Medicare for All by 8%! The top issue, climate change, barely beat out gun violence by 1%.
This is an astonishing turnaround, folks!
Gun violence didn't even break the top 10 issues in the 2008 Democratic primaries. 11 years ago, Obama and Clinton positioned themselves as supporters of the 2nd Amendment's right to bear arms. Clinton even ran attack pieces claiming Obama was too anti-gun while she grew up learning how to shoot. Obama then sarcastically nicknamed her "Annie Oakley."
The 2012 massacre of babies, little kindergarteners at Sandy Hook Elementary School, broke many a heart. Including the heart of our former President who then lobbied Congress to pass gun safety legislation.
Despite strong bi-partisan support for many gun safety measures, the NRA and pro-gun voters waged war and won due to the "intensity gap." Data showed gun owners do vote out politicians with bad NRA ratings. The majority of Americans supported the gun safety measures but that one issue was not determinative for casting their vote.
In the 2016 primaries, Clinton ran to the left of Sanders on guns, but most of their discussions focused on his past positions and gun safety still didn't break into the top issues Democrats wanted to see them debate.
In one of his exit interviews, Barack Obama shared one of the greatest regrets of his 8 years in office was the failure to get gun safety passed Congress in the wake of Sandy Hook.
Trump’s election and the GOP controlled Congress spelled dark days ahead for gun safety activists...
Then came the day that changed everything.
On February 14, 2018, a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 students and staff and leaving 17 injured.
In past school massacres, grieving parents and surviving educators usually led the protests calling for passing gun safety laws.
This time was different.
This time the surviving, grieving, traumatized teens took the lead. Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, and Alex Wind, amongst others, became gun safety activists chanting "never again."
The Parkland Kids organized a national march on Washington and on the Florida statehouse. They led CNN town halls where one teen, David Hogg, dared to toss NRA blood money donations into Senator Marco Rubio's ashen face. That audience booed Rubio and the NRA's spokesperson.
Crowds all over the country booed the NRA.
Within a short time, some corporations were no longer intimidated by the powerful NRA and stopped supporting them and selling guns. The once invicible gun lobby took a massive PR hit and has never recovered.
Less than a month after the Parkland kids demanded changes, the Florida GOP, the infamous "Stand by your Ground" group, caved and passed some state gun safety measures. Those laws did not go far enough but it was the first crack in the GOP's solid wall of resistance to any gun safety legislation.
The intensity level had at long last shifted to the gun safety activists.
Parkland kids founded the students activists organization, March for Our Lives, and began organizing chapters all over the country. They vowed to throw out the politicians blocking gun safety laws.
They attended 2018 candidates’ town halls and held 2018 get-out-the-vote campaigns to keep guns front and center.
Democrats began to run on strong gun safety platforms.
"Democrats earning F ratings from the NRA for their views on gun laws prevailed not only in increasingly bluish swing states such as Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Colorado, but also in conservative strongholds like South Carolina and Kansas."
In 2018, March for our LIves helped boost the youth turnout to 31%, a 10% increase over 2014. It’s still too low but they were just getting started...
March for our Lives continues to help create more and more local chapters from sea to shining sea...
March for Our Lives fuels youth activism in Maine
About 50 students gathered outside Deering High School on Friday to rally in support of stricter gun control regulations.
The rally was organized by Deering’s March For Our Lives chapter, which is hoping to get more students involved amid an uptick in student-led political activism nationwide. Three students spoke against gun violence and the group held a moment of silence to honor the thousands of people nationally who have lost their lives to gun violence this year.
The event followed a visit earlier this week by David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, last year and one of the founders of March For Our Lives.
Hogg spoke at the State House in Augusta with Maine students in support of gun-control legislation and visited with students at Casco Bay High School in Portland.The first Maine chapter formed in February after Marlee Mellen, a 16-year-old sophomore at Casco Bay High School, was contacted by the March For Our Lives northeast director.
Less than four months later, March For Our Lives Maine has liaisons in 10 southern Maine high schools. Of those, four have active chapters, meaning students plan events and hold weekly meetings.
Members of a local chapter of anti-gun violence group March for Our Lives, the teens hosted a town-hall-style gathering Monday. There, candidates fielded questions on how they would stem Utah’s high suicide rate, encourage youth activism and keep schools safe — without over-policing them.
“Obviously, there’s a law that prohibits the Salt Lake City mayor from passing any gun reform legislation,” says Daud Mumin, a recent graduate of West Jordan’s Copper Hills High School, who helped organize Monday’s event. “But there’s more than just legislation that needs to be done.”
“You’ve been the most momentous thing that has happened [to] this movement toward curbing this gun violence,” Dabakis told the organizers. “And, with passion, you need to keep the pressure on.”
That’s when the 17-year-old formed a March for Our Lives chapter at Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School, in suburban Cumberland County.
“As a Jewish American, that hit particularly close to home,” he said Tuesday of the synagogue attack. “When that happened, I said … I cannot sit idly by and not get involved with this organization.”
Cappawana was one of more than a dozen student leaders who came to the Capitol on Tuesday— with a logistical assist from the statewide organization CeaseFirePA — to lobby lawmakers for gun control.
March for Our Lives Georgia invited area youth, legislators, social activists and political insiders to a activism training Sunday at St. James United Methodist Church. The goal, said Ethan Asher, executive director of March for Our Lives - Georgia, is to continue to organize and keep supporters informed of the issues and what they can do to make a difference.
Hawaii Teen Tells Politicians: Listen To us, or We’ll Vote You Out
Borland, who organized a local March for Our Lives rally against gun violence last year, spoke at a session on youth civic engagement featuring David Hogg, the co-founder of March for Our Lives who survived the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
“The Democratic debate’s focus on guns shows the influence of Parkland”
- German Lopex, Vox.com
Please take a moment to tweet your thanks to, David Hogg, and others, for crisscrossing the country in an effort to build more awareness and student chapters of March for our LIves.
Please, tweet your support to March for our Lives for their continued efforts to pressure local and national politicians.
March For Our LivesVerified account @AMarch4OurLives
We deserve a coherent conversation around ending gun violence. The questions during both nights of the debate disrespect activists around the country dealing with the reality of gun violence. We aren’t looking for sound bites we are looking for coherent, life saving policy.