There were eighteen mass shootings over the last twenty years in Europe. The carnage at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland was the 18th mass shooting since January. They’re happening so frequently now that everyone is outraged, for a day or two, a bit longer if you live within 50 miles of the incident. More guns get sold. The industry, and its mouthpiece, the National Rifle Association (NRA), are happy. Carnage is good for business.
Everyone repeats, after each episode, that something must be done.
Yet nothing is done.
After each major shooting comes a new bit of “bipartisan” legislation. Even ridiculously easy concepts like keeping guns out of hands of people on the terrorist watch list are shot down by the NRA.
Another shooting. Another forgotten hashtag of outrage.
The reason is pretty clear. The NRA, particularly with some additional Russian backing, is able to leverage power absolutely on Capitol Hill and in most of the state legislatures. They make billions for the industry, and, every major shooting is a sales pitch to buy more weapons in a nation where there are already more guns than humans to use them.
Those who oppose gun control, unfortunately, can’t seem to come together. The only thing that they have more of is organizations:
- The Brady Campaign
- Independence USA PAC
- Giffords PAC
- Sandy Hook Promise
- Everytown for Gun Safety
- Moms Demand Action
- Mayors Against Illegal Guns
- Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
- Americans for Responsible Solutions
- Violence Policy Center
- Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
- States United to Prevent Gun Violence
- Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence
- National Gun Victims Action Council
- Stop Handgun Violence
- American State Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention
We know that the gun industry alone puts tens of millions of dollars into the NRA. We know that, other than Everytown and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC, most groups raise a fraction of that money.
It’s more than that, though. The NRA represents a fraction of gun owners, but it has 5 million very loud, very well drilled members who reliably turn out to backstop the NRA’s threats to legislators of accountability at the polls.
Brady? Giffords? Everytown?
Fractioning is really the problem. There is almost one major gun organization for every shooting this year. The duplication of efforts is costly, and ineffective.
The number of shootings is going up, and, for the millions given to these organizations, their impact on the problem legislatively, or even in terms of putting accountability back into the ballot box for gun control, is appallingly bad.
So this is a public call to all of the above groups: UNIFY.
Speak with one strong, clear voice. Stand up to the NRA. Organize all of us who believe there should be, as with all other rights, checks and balances, especially when it comes to the mentally ill buying or having access to firearms.
Many of these groups like to say that the NRA has blood on its hands every time there is a mass shooting, like the one yesterday in Parkland, Florida at Stoneman Douglas High School. There is blood to go around, though. Sixteen organizations, and their ADD way that they have tried to address shooting violence in our gun-mad America, contribute to their near-zero success at recent legislation and the impunity that “A” rated NRA politicos operate with daily.