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After every mass shooting in the United States, Americans seem to go through similar stages of grief. When those first horrifying news alerts appear our phones, we’re in shock. Soon after, as the victims names and photographs are released, we mourn. Once we’re done being sad, we express our outrage on social media. And by the following week, life moves on, and we almost forget about this devastatingly common violence until it happens all over again.
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, once suffered through a similar pattern of grief, outrage, and later apathy. “I had been through so many mass shootings as an American,” she says. “I remember way back in the ’90s there was a shooting in a Luby’s restaurant in Texas. I remember being so viscerally impacted by that; so upset. And then the shootings just kept coming.” Columbine. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Gabby Giffords. Her breaking point finally came after Sandy Hook in 2012. “It really impacted me that 20 first graders and six educators could be slaughtered in the sanctity of an elementary school,” she explains. “To me, it said our nation is broken.”
Watts saw two options going forward: she could either leave the country or stay and fight for sensible gun laws. “I didn’t really know how to get involved in the fight, but I did know how to start a Facebook page,” she says. A few days after Sandy Hook, Watts started a group called One Million Moms for Gun Control on her kitchen table, which eventually morphed into Moms Demand Action. “I immediately got calls from women and mothers around the country saying they wanted to fight this issue in their communities,” she explains. Since then, the group has expanded into a full-fledged nationwide grassroots organization focused on passing gun control legislation at both the state and federal level, while also promoting responsible gun ownership initiatives.
The time for citizens to join in on the fight for sensible gun reform is more urgent than ever. Earlier this year, Arkansas and Georgia both passed laws allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons on public university campuses. And in April, President Trump gave a speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, where he called himself “a true friend and champion in the White House” of the gun lobbying organization. With that in mind and in honor of National Gun Violence Awareness Day, we asked Watts to share her advice on the best ways to channel outrage and frustration into action.
Don’t be discouraged by the lack of results in Congress, be invigorated by it.
“The first battle Moms Demand Action decided to engage in was the battle to get the government to pass a background check law right after Sandy Hook,” Watts says. Even though about 90 percent of Americans supported the bill to require gun owners to pass a universal background check, the law ultimately failed to pass the Senate. “We stood behind the president at press conferences, we had in district meetings, we had moms take the Hill, we all went to Washington, D.C., and in the end, we lost,” Watts remembers. “That was an inflection point where I thought this was all going to fall apart and what happened is that we actually doubled in size overnight.”
Don’t be afraid to think small and local.
After Congress failed to pass universal background checks, Moms Demand Action decided to switch gears and to focus on passing legislation at the state level. One of their first victories came after they helped then Governor Martin O’Malley in Maryland pass sweeping gun reform legislation, which included training requirements for gun owners and a ban on many semiautomatic rifles. “We very organically pivoted to the states,” she says. “If Congress wasn’t going to do what it needs to do, then we we’re going to pass these laws where we live.”
Get inventive with your campaigns.
While jamming a representative’s phone line is always a good way for constituents to weigh in on an issue, Moms Demand Action came up with another clever strategy to force the conversation. “We started something called stroller jams,” Watts explains. “Basically the halls of the statehouse would get so filled with moms and babies and baby paraphernalia that lawmakers couldn’t pass us without answering our questions and listening to our spiel. We’ve had them all over the country.”
Never Forget the Power of Your Wallet
Aside from focusing on passing gun reform laws, Moms Demand Action has also targeted corporations to change their policies regarding open carry laws. Watts first got the idea to lobby companies directly after Starbucks decided to prohibit smoking up to 25 feet from its stores, regardless of state law. Watts decided to reach out to Starbucks and ask them to also consider banning open carry guns in their stores, but they initially refused. “We started a campaign that was called Skip Starbucks Saturday; we helped pictures of open carry at Starbucks go viral. And we just kept at it,” Watts says. “Within three months, [then] Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, came out on television and said guns were no longer welcome in their stores.” Since then, they’ve led several other corporate campaigns with hashtags such as #BurritosNotBullets, #GroceriesNotGuns, and #ShakesNotShotguns, that have successfully pressured Target, Trader Joe’s, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and other restaurants and retailers to change their carry policies.
Don't Know Where to Start? Look to Your Phone
Showing your support gun reform can be as simple as signing a petition or calling someone’s district office, but if you’re looking for more ways to get involved, you can also text “ORANGE” to 64433 and you’ll automatically get a list of ways you can help the cause. “We make it all very simple through technology,” Watts says. “But we also have a chapter in every single state. So we can help you find what you’re passionate about, too. You can get involved at the legislative level and help us with lobbying. You can get involved in corporate campaigns. We also have a campaign called Be Smart, which is a non-political way to talk about responsible gun storage.”
Run for office. Seriously.
Like many women around the country, Watts was devastated after Donald Trump was elected president last November. “I remember, I was at the Javits Center that night, wearing my white pantsuit, getting ready to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s win and I can remember thinking, ‘What will happen? Will the women and moms that have worked so hard on this issue feel that it’s hopeless and want to give up?’ ” But once again, the opposite reaction took place. Instead of retreating, hundreds of women in their organization actually decided to run for office in the wake of Clinton’s loss. “We just did a poll of our volunteer base and more than 200 women plan to run in 2018. Several of them have already filed and are already running in special elections across the country. I think that is in many ways part of the solution to this crisis,” says Watts. “We need to have more women in office making the laws.”
