Dear MoveOn member,
The students in Parkland experienced an unimaginable tragedy. They looked around and saw that their elected officials had done nothing to prevent it and were doing nothing to stop it from happening again. So they decided that if the grown-ups won't act, they will.
I watched the news reports of an estimated 1 million students walking out of class last week to demand change to our nation's gun laws. In fact, here in Massachusetts, more than 600 students spent their snow day marching to the State House (I was so proud of them that we sent over donuts and hot chocolate).
Young people have always been on the frontlines for social change. It is our responsibility to listen, answer their call, and get to work.
The persistence of these students is working. The state of Florida—a state led by Republicans and where the NRA has tremendous power—passed modest new limits on guns last week, including raising the minimum age and banning bump stocks. It's not enough, but it's a small step in the right direction.
I'm standing with these students, and doing everything I can to support them. And MoveOn members are too. You're planning to show up in person at the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., and sister marches around the country on March 24. You've been funding MoveOn billboards in key districts all over the country exposing how much money individual Republican members of Congress have gotten from the NRA. And you're gearing up to help MoveOn run get-out-the-vote drives in districts represented by NRA Republicans to defeat them in November.
Nonstop political pressure—the kind MoveOn's millions of members can muster—is what it's going to take to make the voices of these students heard.
I wish I could tell you that the Republican-led Congress is finally willing to do something about gun control. Democrats in Congress have proposed bills to ban assault weapons. Bills to require universal background checks. Bills to close the gun show loophole. Bills to ban bump stocks. Bills to fund Centers for Disease Control research on gun violence. Congress could vote on any of those pieces of legislation tomorrow. But as long as Republicans maintain control of Congress, they've made it clear that they won't vote on a single one.
Since the Parkland shooting, student activists have been absolutely clear about what they want to accomplish: They want universal background checks. They want to ban assault weapons. And they want to make sure that their school is the last one in America to experience this type of unspeakable tragedy.
I don't think they're asking for too much, do you?
But Donald Trump and his Republican enablers have rejected all of these reasonable ideas. Instead, they've come up with "solutions" that would make things worse: arming teachers and passing laws that will make it even easier to carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the United States.
Are you kidding me? The only reason that these nonsense "solutions" are even being discussed is because of NRA's grip on the GOP. We have to stop it—for the safety of our children and our communities. That means that we have to do everything we can to end the GOP's control of Congress this November.
Will you chip in $3—or whatever you can afford—right now to help power MoveOn's innovative elections program to help elect progressive leaders at the local, state, and federal levels?
Yes, I'm in. I'll chip in now.
My oldest granddaughter is 16 years old. She's smart, kind, and has a smile that lights up a room.
And I don't know how to look her in the eye and tell her that the people that her grandma works with still won't do one single thing about guns to keep her safe at school.
I refuse to fail her, and I refuse to fail the students from Parkland, the youth in urban cities who have been fighting gun violence in their communities without any headlines at all, the young people around this country who walked out of their schools last week to demand that we fight for their lives, and the schoolchildren still too young to join in the protests.
MoveOn is already doing powerfully important work to address gun violence in our country. But MoveOn knows, and I agree, that to pass gun reform laws, we'll need to make members of Congress who are beholden to the NRA fear for their jobs—because the moment that they realize that students, teachers, moms and dads, grandparents, and concerned people across the country will hold them accountable if they don't pass stronger gun laws will be the moment that change will happen.
Thanks for all you do.
–Elizabeth Warren
Want to support MoveOn's work? 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 MoveOn needs your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.
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This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on March 19th, 2018. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
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