Gilroy, Dayton, El Paso -We Can No Longer Stay Silent!
Gilroy, Dayton, El Paso -Coming to a city near you!
With right wing violence recently in Gilroy, Dayton, El Paso We can no longer stay silent!
Sign the Petition re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings
Dear fellow MoveOn member,
At least 20 people were killed and dozens wounded in El Paso. At least 9 killed and 27 wounded in Dayton. These massacres must stop. Congress needs to act to protect us.
I’m a gun owner, Christian, and MoveOn member. This is about living our values and saving lives.
We need commonsense gun control now, including the following:
•Ban civilian ownership of weapons designed for warfare, including assault weapons.
•Close the gun show loophole.
•Limit high capacity ammunition magazines.
•Create certificates of ownership for firearms, similar to automobiles, which should be governed by similar regulations, including the need for training, testing, and insurance.
Tell Congress to pass gun control measures immediately.
Add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.
How many more innocent victims must die at the hands of an antiquated and oft-misinterpreted Second Amendment?
Enough. It’s time to say that thoughts and prayers are no longer enough in the face of gun-related tragedies. We need meaningful action. Gun control doesn’t mean no guns.
I’m a gun owner, and I’m not suggesting that we take guns away. I’m suggesting that we put tighter controls on acquiring and owning them. We must ban assault weapons and all weapons of war.
We simply cannot fast track the use of silencers or allow public access to armor-piercing ammunition.
Gun show loopholes must be stopped. Ammunition should not be sold online. Mandatory wait periods should be enforced, during which time a thorough background check, psychological and medical evaluation, and character references should be completed.
Congress must stop caving in to special interests and enact commonsense gun control measures.
More accountability should be placed in the hands of retailers. When patrons refuse wait periods, authorities should be notified. Training and testing should be mandatory, as should a renewal process that includes many of the above-mentioned evaluation terms. I would hope that we could all agree to submit ourselves to these terms.
Currently, it’s easier to go to a gun show and pick up a firearm than it is to go to the local pharmacy and buy cold medication. Acquiring and owning a gun should be at least as controlled as getting a license to drive a car. Gun control alone is not the whole of the solution, but it’s a start. And if it saves one sweet life, it’s worth it.
Thank you.
—Mark Carman
Let’s erect billboards to hold Mitch McConnell and the NRA accountable. RIGHT NOW.
Stop Mass Shootings (MoveOn Gun Control Team)
Dear MoveOn member,
This weekend, gunmen killed at least 29 people in back-to-back mass shootings—in El Paso, Texas, in an attack apparently fueled by anti-immigrant racism and white supremacy—and in Dayton, Ohio. These were the 250th and 251th mass shootings this year in America.1
In comparison, there’s been one mass shooting this year in Canada and three in Mexico.2
We can tackle the epidemic of gun violence in America. But Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP senators are blocking sweeping gun control legislation passed by the majority-Democrat House earlier this year.
We must hold McConnell and other GOP senators accountable and defeat those who are up for re-election in 2020 (especially McConnell), starting with putting up billboards in central, high-traffic locations in their home states that highlight their role in America’s gun violence epidemic. Will you chip in now to help us pay for the billboards?
These shootings need to stop. At festivals. At shopping centers. At schools. At places of worship. At night clubs. At movie theaters.
There are so many simple, clear steps that lawmakers can take to reduce the epidemic of gun violence in America—by passing into law policies that are supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans and even most gun owners.3,4
Universal background checks. Closing the gun show loophole. Banning war weapons like AR-15’s. Banning bump stocks. Addressing America’s mental health crisis. And redoubling our efforts to combat white supremacy and domestic terrorism.
Indeed, the Democratic U.S. House passed two bills that would accomplish many of these goals earlier this year, but Mitch McConnell and the GOP—at the bidding of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and gun manufacturers—won’t even allow the bills to come up for a vote in the Senate.5 They won’t even allow federal funding for research into gun violence.6 It’s outrageous. And it’s heartbreaking.
That’s why we’re going to hold McConnell and other vulnerable GOP senators accountable and defeat them in 2020, starting with putting up billboards in central, high-traffic locations in their home states that highlight their role in America’s gun violence epidemic. Will you pitch in $3 to help us pay for the billboards?
The horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly seven years ago should have been a tipping point on gun violence in America, but since then:
- There have been approximately 2,185 mass shootings.7
- Congress has passed into law zero measures to make our children and communities safer.
- The NRA and gun manufacturers continue to write big checks to Republican politicians.
According to polls, Mitch McConnell and other GOP senators who are up in for re-election in 2020 are increasingly vulnerable.8 But to defeat them in 2020—which is the only way we can finally pass legislation to address America’s gun violence crisis—we need to make sure their constituents know that they’re standing with the NRA and blocking commonsense reforms to address America’s gun violence epidemic.
We can never forget that the GOP is culpable in these heartbreaking and avoidable gun deaths, as a result of their obedience to the NRA’s dangerous agenda. Let’s make sure that the voters in their states know it, too.
Thanks for all you do. –Emily, Emma, Stephen, Manny, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “Dayton, Ohio shooting: Nine dead, 26 injured; suspected gunman killed, police say,” USA Today, August 4, 2019
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2. Tweet by Ian Bremmer, August 3, 2019
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Will you help support our work?
We didn’t budget for the billboards, which is why we’re asking you to chip in now, so we can quickly purchase them. We can only do it if we raise the money now. Can you chip in $3—or whatever you can afford—right now?
Yes, I’ll chip in to help hold McConnell and other NRA-funded politicians accountable.
The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump’s agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation’s pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?
New organization joins the cause in the USA
That’s why Win Without War activists have an important role to play in the national conversation happening now about military-style weapons, like the ones used in the past week’s shootings. Because in moments like these, we all have to raise our voices. Or things will never change.
Can you take a moment to demand Congress ban weapons of war from our streets NOW?
Gun violence here is fueled by hate and militarism everywhere. In that same vein, U.S. violence-first domestic and foreign policies are inextricably linked — they share the same root causes of white supremacy, human exploitation, toxic masculinity, ableism, and inequality.
Military-style semi-automatic assault weapons are designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. Their very purpose is to rip apart human bodies. These weapons of war, like AR-15 assault rifles, have no place on our streets or in our communities — whether they’re carried by civilians or law enforcement.
What’s more is that, as peace activists, we know that these kinds of weapons should not be on any street or in any community anywhere. Communities in Kabul, San Salvador, Orlando, and El Paso ALL deserve and have the right to live in safety without the fear of violence. And more and more weapons, peddled by the global arms industry led by the United States, will never positively contribute to realizing that dream.
The hard truth is that one reason that communities long fighting to resist the NRA and pro-gun lobbying groups have been struggling to make change is because decades of out-of-control military spending has created a powerful global lobby of arms manufacturers. As activists who work to reduce Pentagon spending and waste, this makes our efforts to reduce the size of the military industrial complex all the more urgent. It’s up to us to put a stop to the practice of these companies selling weapons to civilians.
That’s why if we can pass the assault weapon ban NOW, we don’t just take guns out of the hands of white supremacists — we also curb the power and profit of the arms industry for good.
Like many across the country, we are infuriated by the inability of our leaders to seek out sensible solutions to the gun violence crisis, just as we are outraged and heartbroken by the rampant militarism and white supremacy that has haunted our country since long before Trump entered the White House. All communities deserve an authentic and just sense of security — this is a simple human right, and we must defend it. Here and everywhere.
Thank you for working for peace, -Stephen and the Win Without War team
This message was sent by Stephen Miles through MoveOn’s public petition website.
Indivisible Message for you…
Get Indivisible on Gun Law Reforms
We want to share with you something that the American Psychological Association (APA) released on Sunday:
“As our nation tries to process the unthinkable yet again, it is clearer than ever that we are facing a public health crisis of gun violence fueled by racism, bigotry and hatred. The combination of easy access to assault weapons and hateful rhetoric is toxic… One critical factor is access to, and the lethality of, the weapons that are being used in these crimes. Adding racism, intolerance and bigotry to the mix is a recipe for disaster.”
The APA doesn’t name names, but we will: Donald Trump’s racist policies and rhetoric combined with Mitch McConnell’s adoration of guns and refusal to implement even basic gun violence prevention measures are making our country’s racism and our gun violence bloodbath even worse.
In order to stem this epidemic, we need to do a lot of things: We need to elect leaders who have the bravery to face down the NRA, and who will close the detention camps. We need to get Trump off Twitter and out of office. We need to eliminate anti-democracy rules like the filibuster that allow McConnell to kill any gun violence prevention bill before it reaches a vote. We need to Defund Hate and dismantle the Trump Deportation Machine.
One of our jobs at Indivisible is to provide tools and resources so that we can make all of that work as easy and effective as possible for you.
Launching: Impeachment August
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