Mo News: Why New Gun Laws May Pass This Time

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Good morning,

It has been a big week on Capitol Hill when it comes to gun reform, with the major headline that a bipartisan group of US senators–10 Democrats and 10 Republicans- have a deal for new measures on background checks, red flag laws and mental health. Late Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he also supports the framework, meaning several additional Republicans may join him as well.

So with an historic agreement--the biggest gun control bill in a generation--we're talking today to Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun reform group Moms Demand Action to get her reaction, why things are different this time, how she counters NRA talking points, and the challenges still ahead given the bill's scope is limited.

🗞 But first, here are some of today's headlines:

• 💰Inflation Watch: Investors are waiting for the Federal Reserve to wrap up its two-day policy meeting this afternoon, with expectations that the Fed will announce a .75% interest rate hike, the biggest increase since 1994. ~ APFed's Balancing Act: Interest rate hikes are the biggest tool in the Fed's toolbox is it looks to slow down inflation, but's it's a balancing act: they need to raise rates enough to bring down inflation and cool the economy a bit, but not so much that it triggers a recession.President Biden is considering rolling back some tariffs on China to bring down prices on goods for consumers. ~NY TimesMeanwhile, as crypto prices continue to plunge, the crypto exchange Coinbase announced a massive round of layoffs: almost 18% of its workforce (or more than 1,000 employees). ~ CNBCCEO Brian Armstrong said the company grew "too quickly" during a bull market, and that he expects the US will be entering a recession.

• 💉Covid Vaccine for Toddlers: A group of vaccine experts will meet today to recommend whether the FDA should approve both Pfizer's and Moderna's Covid vaccine for kids under the age of 5, the only Americans not yet eligible for Covid vaccination. ~ NY TimesAhead of the meeting, the FDA said Pfizer-BioNTech's 3-dose vaccine appears to be effective in preventing Covid in that age group.The expectation is that the FDA will authorize both vaccines, giving parents the option of which to give their children.

Now to our interview with Shannon Watts:

via Moms Demand Action

Watts has been on the front lines of the gun reform fight for nearly a decade. She is a mother of five originally from Zionsville, Indiana, and was a stay at home mom until 2012. Within hours of the Sandy Hook school shooting, she went looking for a gun-related equivalent to Mothers Against Drunk Driving and found none. So she created a Facebook page. At the time, Watts only had 75 friends on Facebook. Within days, she had a national following and the makings of a grassroots movement.

Moms Demand Action now has chapter in every state of the country, hundreds of thousands of volunteers and nearly 8 million supporters, which exceeds the membership of the National Rifle Association. The lessons she has learned and her perspective are extremely helpful to understanding the gun issue in this country. We hope you find the conversation helpful and informative!

~ Mosh & Jill

The video and text of our conversation is below.

The full audio of the interview is also available on the Mo News Podcast.

This interview was taped June 14 and has been edited for time and clarity.

Mosheh Oinounou: I'm so grateful that you're able to join us this week...I have to say, as someone who covered Washington and politics for 20 years, and Capitol Hill, when I got the news alert over the weekend that there was a deal on gun reform, I had to do a double take—or a triple take. I was a bit surprised. And I'm wondering as someone who's worked on this for a decade now, what your reaction was to the to the deal on the Senate.

Shannon Watts: [Sighs] Relief. You know, I understand that this is a first step. And there will be many more along the journey. But...we have changed the calculus so much on this issue that we could get 10 Republican and 10 Democrat senators to say that they will sign onto this framework..right, still [a] framework, we have to put legislative text to that And there's a longer path in front of us. We've been down a path many times, but this is the furthest we've ever gone down. And so I just felt relief at the prospect that something would happen at a federal level, for the first time in a generation that we can break the logjam and save lives. I mean, that's really what this activism is about. It's about saving lives. And so far, what we're seeing in this framework would do that.

MO: Obviously the deal--as it's been publicized--doesn't include all the measures the gun reform community was looking for. But I'd love to know, from your perspective, what do you believe are the most important parts of the deal?

SW: First of all, closing what we call the "dating partner loophole." So this is a loophole that exists in federal law that does not consider people who have been convicted of misdemeanor abuse, if they're just dating partners. It does not consider them prohibited purchasers. That's because federal law only considered spouses or people you cohabitate with or people who [you] have children with, those are prohibited purchasers, but not dating partners. And here we are...decades later since that law was written. Many women are waiting much longer to get married if they ever marry at all. And yet, we know that dating partners are now as likely to be shot and killed by an intimate partner as a spouse. So closing that loophole will save so many lives. About 70 women are shot and killed every single month in this country. Domestic violence and domestic gun violence in particular is a crisis. And closing that loophole will save countless lives not just of women, but also children. This framework also lays out a way to make it more difficult for someone who is a danger to themselves or others and is 21 years or younger, that wants to buy a long gun.

Do I think we should prohibit assault weapons? Yes. Do I think anyone under the age of 21 should have access to an assault weapon? No. But Republicans have agreed to make it harder by sending those people that age range through additional databases and also contacting local law enforcement to see if there are red flags. And almost always there are red flags before these kinds of shootings that we saw in Buffalo and Uvalde. And then finally, this framework would bolster red flag laws in the states that have them—19 states and Washington D.C. have now passed these laws. They allow friends, family, police depending on the state even educators to get a temporary restraining order that would remove the guns from danger to themselves or others until police can investigate and...determine what the situation is. These laws work, the data shows they work, they prevent suicides, they prevent mass shootings, they prevent domestic gun violence. But the issue is, once you pass these laws in the state, you have to actually spend money to implement them and to incentivize police and judges utilizing them. They need to know how they can ask for an order.

MO: So it's not just enough to pass a Red Flag Law? The implementation is complex?

SW: Exactly. In those cities, in states like in California, San Diego, for example, has done a really amazing job of investing in implementation and incentivizing officials to use these, and they utilize them more...it's intuitive. But if police...[and] judges don't know a lot about a law, then they're not going to use it. And there have been some experts who said that maybe the judge in Buffalo didn't realize that the state had recently passed a Red Flag Law and that he could have utilized an extreme risk protection order in that case, and that could have changed the trajectory of that shooting. So that is part of the framework as well. And the dollars that they would give the states to implement the red flag laws could also incentivize other states to pass these...So all of those things are important measures that we fight for at the state level and would save lives.

MO: What do you believe has changed this time around? You have been working on this for 10 years. How did we get here, finally?

SW: So if we go back to 2012, when the Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy happened, it's important to remember that about a quarter of all Democrats in Congress had an A rating from the NRA. Today, none do. That was a decade of hard work...showing lawmakers essentially that if you do the right thing, we'll have your back. If you do the wrong thing, we'll have your job. And that's how social movements work. It doesn't happen overnight, you have to build this army that can go toe to toe with a special interest, and also have relationships with lawmakers...That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, that they know you, that they trust you, and that they want you standing with them, as opposed to the gun lobby. So that is a huge seismic shift in American politics.

I think the other thing that has changed is that, initially, our theory of change was that Congress was where this work would begin and end. That within weeks or months after the Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy, we would pass wholesale federal legislation that would require a background check on every gun sale and that, certainly, the Senate would act in the wake of this tragedy. Not only did they not act, but several Democrats voted with the NRA. What was the fallout of that vote? The NRA went right back in and instead of rewarding those Democrats who voted with them, they invested in their opponents.

So another important lesson was learned at that point, which was that with friends like the the NRA, who needs enemies, right? And Democrats realized if they could vote, they're conscious that they could have this grassroots army that would support them...they could do the right thing on this issue...they could buck the NRA. Republicans didn't learn that lesson. What has also been interesting when you when you look at our theory of change, I think it was that if we just shine the light on, the NRA is corruption...we weaken them...we would win...10 years later, the NRA is hemorrhaging political power and dollars. They tried to declare bankruptcy last year and failed. And yet their agenda lives on. Why? Because it was embraced by the right wing. And the right wing has used guns as an organizing principle. So these are other interest groups.

When you refer to the right wing, are you referring to other interest groups or other lobbying arms that [are] leading Republicans? QAnon. Proud boys. The Oathkeepers. There was actually a report that came out two weeks ago that said 22% of state Republican lawmakers belong to one of those groups. Those are right wing groups. They are not within the mainstream, they are full of extremists and white supremacists and misogynists. These are dangerous so-called militias. So guns for these groups, again, is an organizing principle now, and it brings people in the door on a whole host of issues. This agenda we've seen in statehouses that's anti-trans and anti-woman, anti-abortion, and pro-gun...that was something we never predicted. And I think those groups have pulled Republicans to the right. And that's just context for...why this agreement on framework is pretty profound. Our theory of change is that we have to get all lawmakers on the right side of this issue. And you do that by getting Republicans to vote for it.

MO: A question I'm getting from some [of the] community on Instagram, and the newsletter and podcast is would any of these measures prevent the next mass shooting? Or...would have prevented a recent mass shooting?

SW: There is no law that is going to prevent all shootings, or all types of shootings in this country. There's 400 million guns, and very few gun laws. And it's also important to remember that mass shootings are about 1% of the gun violence in this country. It's really violence with handguns that is killing 110 Americans every single day, and also wounding hundreds more...it's tearing apart the fabric of our communities. We don't look at automobile deaths and say, 'What one law will stop all automobile deaths, we're going to do that? And if there isn't one law, we're not going to do anything, right?' When you look at how we addressed vehicle fatalities back in the 70s, and 80s, we passed speed limit laws—federal and state. We put rumble strips in the roads, we made our technology safer through airbags, we required seatbelts, we reduced drunk driving deaths...it was a whole host of laws and policies and cultural shifts that saved so many lives. Now, people are still dying in car deaths all the time. We don't say laws don't work, technology doesn't work, cultural change doesn't work. This is just part of creating a safety net that will protect people when it comes to guns. We haven't even tried trying. And look, we know that most of the mass shooters that we've seen are young men. And when you look at actual gun homicides, generally, young men between the ages of 18 to 20 commit about 18% of them and are only 4% of the population. So keeping guns out of the hands of people whose prefrontal cortexes aren't developed is also important. And this framework so far does address that, not holistically. I wish that it did, I wish it would [go] further but it is a start.

MO: Do you feel like you can make progress from here-- God forbid, should there be another mass shooting? Is the thinking-- 'we tried passing a law, Shannon, and it doesn't seem to have worked out, so there's not much more we can do from here?' or would it be the reverse? Do you feel that this is the first step and more can be done when the next tragedy happens?

SW: Well, it's our job to make it the reverse. You know, you asked me what's different. Now, the other thing that's different since Sandy Hook is that we have a grassroots army that can go toe-to-toe with the gun lobby, and that our organization is doing research and we can point to the causes of gun violence in this country. And we can lead the way in showing that we can't make laws based on emotion or anecdotes, that we have to make it based on data. When we look at states with strong gun laws like California, we see less gun death. When we look at states that have purposefully weakened their gun laws, like Missouri where I used to live, we see much more gun deaths. If you look at California, it's 45th (per capita) in the country for gun deaths...it's at the very bottom...it has the fewest gun deaths. And if you look at Missouri, it's number five. So about seven gun deaths per 100,000 people in California, about 12 per 100,000 people in Missouri. It is very clear, through research and data, that stronger gun laws save lives. So it is on us as a movement to keep pushing for stronger laws at all levels to get Republicans to be on the right side of this issue. And that is hard work. And it takes time. But clearly, we're making progress.

MO: For many legislators, it's about job preservation, right? And this whole idea that came out of '94, that you'll lose an election if you vote for gun control measures. When you speak to the moderates, who are scared of a primary challenge, what is the data these days in terms of how worried do they need to be about how voters on the right might vote on guns?

SW: When you look at polling among Americans, the vast majority of them support common sense gun laws, like a background check on every gun sale. There's huge bipartisan support among state lawmakers for things like red flag laws. I've never met anyone who doesn't think we should disarm domestic abusers. There's some polling that shows that even though Republicans and gun owners also vastly support these measures, at the end of the day, when it comes down to a partisan decision about who to vote for, all of those common sense measures go out the window, and they vote in a partisan way, in sort of a tribal way. And that's what we really need to do to peel off those people who are in the middle. Our own polling shows that often that's women and moms, suburban women and moms. And the suburbs are much more diverse than they used to be. So it's not just white moms, it's black and brown moms too. And when you poll them, it also shows that they overwhelmingly, regardless of political party, support what we are working for. So I think it's our job to make sure in November—midterm elections are only 150 days away—that this is a priority issue. When they go into the polls, at all levels of government, and up and down the ballot.

MO: I want to go to a couple points that you'll often hear from the NRA and others on the right. One: we have a mental health problem this country, we don't have a gun problem.

SW: Well, first of all, I always want to point out that people who are mentally ill are much more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators. And the NRA points its fingers at a...lot of things. I have a whole list running of what they have blamed mass shootings on, everything from Ritalin to too many exit doors to not enough exit doors to single parenting. And it goes on. And mental health is the main thing that they point fingers at. If you compare America's mental health rates to other peer nations, we rank about ninth. So in other words, we have very similar rates of mental illness, [yet] we have a 26 times higher gun homicide rate. The reason for that...is easy access to guns. Now, two things can be true at the same time. Mental illness is not what is causing mass shootings. But we also have a mental health crisis, particularly after COVID. So any funding that we can put toward helping people who are mentally ill, and that's a lot of Americans right now, that's wonderful, but we shouldn't try to combine the two things because it's too often a scapegoat for what the real cause of gun violence is in this country.

MO: Okay, next argument: the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

SW: Yeah, it's nice in theory, but not in practice. I think all those people think they're the bus driver in the movie Speed. If you look at police officers, and you look at the data, they are able to hit a moving target less than 30% of the time. These are incredibly highly-trained people. The idea that a good guy with a gun—and in this country you know in 21 states you don't have to have a background check or training to concealed carry a hidden loaded handgun in public—[is] somehow going to be [a] sharpshooter is asinine. And it doesn't work in practice...we can look at some recent mass shootings where there were armed school resource officers or armed guards, or even 19 police officers and a border patrol, like in Uvalde, and yet they weren't able to stop the gunman.

MO: The other thing that is often said is that everyone in this country already has to go through a background check. Can you explain background checks as they currently stand?

SW: Yes, the federal law passed in 1994 required background checks on licensed gun sales. So in other words, you have to be a licensed dealer to sell a gun, and then you perform a background check. The lawmakers at the time never imagined there would be this huge online marketplace where you could buy a gun and arrange to get it in person. And also, the NRA fought for the loophole that you wouldn't have to perform a background check at gun shows. So the law, the federal law, does not include unlicensed sellers in that category of who has to perform a background check. We know that millions of guns are sold each year without a background check, because people buy them at gun shows, online, even garage sales. And if you are a minor or a criminal or a prohibited purchaser, that is how you're gonna get a gun. And that is such a huge loophole. Because when we have this sort of Swiss cheese of gun laws in this country, meaning blue states have strong laws and red states have weak laws. We are all only as safe as the closest state with the weakest gun laws...I would use Chicago as an example, right? People are always saying 'But what about Chicago?' It's a blue state and they've got strong gun laws. It's a 15 minute drive to the border of Indiana, which has some of the loosest gun laws in the country. You just load up your truck with guns, you bring them back and you sell them. And that's what happens all the time in Chicago. So we really do need federal level laws. But in the meantime, we've been passing them state by state.

MO: I'm glad you brought up Indiana because that is where you were 10 years ago. What was your experience with guns prior to Sandy Hook, as a neighbor, and as a resident of a state like Indiana? And how much thought have you given to the issue prior to Sandy Hook?

SW: So my grandfathers were both World War Two veterans, they both were gun owners and hunters. And they lived in Indiana and Illinois. They handed their guns down to my dad. So we did have guns in our house. I don't think my dad used them. I actually grew up in upstate New York, which is a pretty conservative area of gun owners. And then living in Indiana, many of my neighbors [were] gun owners. Did I think about the issue of guns? Really only when there was a mass shooting. I was a young mom of five when Columbine happened, and...I didn't sort of step out of my bubble until, frankly, I was afraid that my own kids weren't safe in their schools. And I should say...as a white woman living in the suburbs, it was long past time that I got engaged and involved in this issue. But when I started this Facebook page, which turned into Moms Demand Action, I never imagined there was this underbelly of America that existed, that I would be threatened, that my children would be threatened, that extremists would want to kill me because I simply thought there should be a background check on every gun sale.

MO: So you started this Facebook page the day after the Sandy Hook shooting?

SW: Yes.

MO: What inspired you and what was your hope [that] the result would be?

SW: Like so many people in this country, the day of the shooting I was just devastated. I was a mess. I was sobbing and I was glued to my television set. And I just could not believe this was unfolding in America. And then I woke up the next day and I was so angry. I could barely contain that anger. And I am a child of the 80s. I grew up in the 80s. And Mothers Against Drunk Driving was so incredibly influential in the culture. I can remember showing up in my high school one day and there was this crumpled car outside with blood in it. And it was Mothers Against Drunk Driving [who] put it there to show us that we shouldn't drink and drive. This organization, I just felt, had such an impact and, frankly, women and moms generally...we're sort of the secret sauce, I think. And so I wanted to be part of a badass army of women, that's what I knew that next day, that I was going to go online and find this group I could join. And I couldn't find it. I found some DC think tanks run by men, I found some city and state organizations, mostly run by men. And I just thought, 'I'm going to start this conversation on Facebook, I know how to create a Facebook page,' and I had 75 Facebook friends.

But if you hear about social media being like lightning in a bottle, this was that. I had women and moms from all over the country in every city tracking me down, I never imagined I'd be a public figure. So my phone number was out there, my email, my home address, and I was just inundated...they kept saying, 'How do I do this where I live? I was like, do what I [did], just start a Facebook page.' And it was really the genius of these volunteers who said, this is organizing. This isn't just marches, rallies, this is creating a grassroots army that will go toe-to-toe with a gun lobby where we live.

MO: Your 75 Facebook friends have turned into hundreds of thousands of volunteers chapters in every state and 8 million supporters. Shannon, you wrote a book, Fight like a Mother. And there's a quote in there that struck me where you write, "you may not see yourself as an agent of change yet, after all, you're probably plenty busy taking care of your kids and making a living, you might think you don't have the time, energy or guts to be an activist. Stop that. You have so much potential to affect change more than you know."

What would Shannon the day before Sandy Hook have said in response to that quote, and how did you get there?

SW: I never imagined I'd be an activist. I never imagined I would be involved in the issue of gun safety. But what I have learned over a decade is that every voice matters, every vote matters, and every minute you spend on activism matters. One of our brilliant volunteers coined the idea of spending an hour each day on activism as 'Nap-tivism.' So when their kids are taking a nap, they can send a tweet, they can make a phone call, they can send a text. And it really does add up. I think so many people get frustrated by the system because it's built around incrementalism. I wish we could have had wholesale change. The day after the Sandy Hook school shooting a decade ago, I thought we would.

MO: We live in an era of immediate gratification, Shannon, don't we?

SW: We do, we do. And look, I wish that were the case, because this is about saving lives and every minute matters. But when the system is set up for incrementalism, you have to be pragmatic, and you have to recognize that will eventually lead to a revolution. I do think women and moms in particular are cut out for the unglamorous heavy-lifting of grassroots activism, like showing up at every gun hearing, bringing cookies to your lawmakers and creating relationships with them. And never giving up. I heard someone equate America being a sick child. If your kid has a fever, and they're up all night, it can be really exhausting. And you can think, 'I need sleep, I need a break.' But at the end of the day, you're not going to give up. This is your kid, you're going to hang in there until that kid is better. And I do think there's something to be said for that determination. It goes hand-in-hand with being an amazing activist.

MO: So there's a whole group on the left that wants change. There's a certain percentage of the right that says, 'don't take away my guns'. What have you found to be the most effective message to the middle?

People who say 'I believe in the Second Amendment. I might be a gun owner and I don't want the government interfering with my Second Amendment rights.' What messaging have you found most effective to that group?

SW: I think there is this belief that this is a polarizing issue in this country. But when you actually have one-on-one conversations, you realize you're on the same page. Our organization isn't anti-gun. We're not against the Second Amendment. Many volunteers are gun owners or their partners are gun owners. This is about restoring the responsibilities that should go along with gun rights. I think responsible gun owners are outraged by what is happening in this country because it does make them look bad...it paints everyone with this type of extremism or danger. And I have seen so many people that are in that group that you're talking about right now, as you define, the moderate-right. People like Bill Kristol, and David Frum. S.E. Cupp, she used to be an NRA spokeswoman—she has now firmly distanced herself from the NRA and is in support of stronger gun safety laws. So you can look at a lot of Republicans who have said, 'I part ways with a party on this issue,' and that could also be what's influencing Republicans? I mean, in Texas, many high profile Republican donors put an ad in the paper saying, 'we expect our senators to act on this issue.' This was Republican donors, that sends a strong message.

MO: At the same time, we have a deal in Washington. There's been a whole bunch of states that have have loosened their laws. It does seem like you're fighting a multi-multi-multi-front battle here in multiple state legislators. How are you managing your efforts across 50 state houses?

SW: Thankfully, we have this grassroots army, and they show up in every single state, regardless of whether it's red or blue. And not only have we now passed background checks in 20 states and disarmed domestic abusers in 30 and passed red flag laws in 19, and secured storage and police accountability bills and on and on and on...we have changed the face of this nation in terms of the bills that we've passed. Colorado is a completely different state, Nevada, Washington. But we've also stopped the NRA agenda 90% of the time in state houses every year for the last six years. That is really important to remember that defense is such an important part of this. Because these are bills that would just sail through state houses. If it weren't for our volunteers showing up in red shirts and saying, not in my community. You won't. And has the NRA advanced their agenda in some red states? Yes, but we have kept them at bay. And it isn't just state houses. We can do this work at city councils. Just last week, we passed resolutions through five different city councils that prohibit ghost guns or prohibit open carry or prohibit guns in sensitive places. Walnut Creek, California just passed a secure storage bill. So this work can be done in school boards, city council, state houses, boardrooms—I think it is hyper-local work that builds the momentum on the ground that will eventually point the right president and the right Congress in the right direction. I'm very hopeful we're going to take this step in the Senate. But that doesn't mean the work ends. We're going to show up all over the place. And that includes the midterm elections. We have over 100 of our own volunteers, 120 gun violence survivors from our organization, who are running for office up and down the ballot to members of Congress, or Moms Demand Action volunteers. That is another way to ensure that we have a seat at the table.

MO: One concept I was struck by, and I'd love for you to explain it, is the idea of losing forward that you stress to your organizers. Explain what losing forward is.

SW: You know, you don't get involved in gun violence prevention and not think you're going to lose some battles, right? We're taking on the most wealthy, powerful special interest that's ever existed. And I'm thankful that we win more than we lose, but we've lost plenty along the way. It would be really easy. For example, we were talking about the Manchin-Toomey vote earlier, when we lost by a handful of votes in the Senate in the spring of 2013. That was the bill that would have closed the background check loophole in honor of the Sandy Hook school shooting. If we had just looked at that loss and said, You know what, America's not ready for this, I guess we should pack up and go home. We wouldn't exist today...We wouldn't be where we are with the Senate right now. So the the lesson we learned from that loss was that we needed to pivot and do this work locally—state houses, boardrooms, city councils.

That was losing forward...I look at a state like Arkansas...I would go to visit our volunteers in Arkansas the first couple of years, it would be the same handful of people. We weren't really growing there. I'm not sure people thought gun safety was a great way to spend their activist energy in the state. And what happened was, a lawmaker put a bill forward that would require guns on college campuses, would...allow them on college campuses, even tailgates, where alcohol is served...the most absurd idea you've ever heard, give guns to college-aged kids and in the mix of alcohol...it so outraged women and moms across the state that our organization grew exponentially. And we were so strong immediately that we could go in and carve out an exemption so that guns were not allowed inside stadiums. And then the next year, two of our volunteers ran for office, they both won. One was a professor at the University of Arkansas, and the other one was a retired nurse...who ran against the guy that put the guns on campus bill forward, she beat him by 12 points. And then the year after that, we stopped stand your ground twice, even though there was a Republican supermajority in the Arkansas State House. So that's losing forward. If we hadn't had that initial loss of allowing guns on campus, we never would have grown, we never would have elected our volunteers to Office. And we couldn't have stopped those dangerous bills. Now, we've had losses since then in Arkansas, but it is a theory of change. And in our theory is also our motto...keep going, we are going to always keep moving forward, we're always going to be advancing the ball, and we're never gonna give up. And we just have to learn from losses...

MO: For people, you know, I heard a lot of this out of Buffalo and Uvalde...just depression...People who don't even know where to turn, they want to do something. What are the first steps, suggestions, tips—you get folks who want to have an impact in the free spare moments that they have?

SW: No matter where you live, we need you to call your senator and let them know that this is a priority issue for you and you expect them to act and that there will be consequences for inaction. I would also suggest that you join a chapter of Moms Demand Action or Students Demand Action where you live. We aren't just moms, we're mothers and others. Lots of men and dads and non-moms wear our shirts. And you can join us by texting the word Ready to 64433. I would also suggest you get educated about the people who represent you or who are running for office in this next election. Are they gun sense candidates? Where do they stand on this issue? Do they have an A rating from the NRA or an F? And if you want to learn more about your specific candidates, you can go to gunsensecandidate.org and learn more about how your candidates have voted on this issue and whether they'll align themselves with the NRA. I would say those are the top three things that we should be doing.

MO: Shannon, what's the biggest personal lesson you've learned? It might be hard to just choose one, as you've become an advocate these past 10 years, an activist [who] built this grassroots army? What have you learned about yourself and this country?

SW: You know, I am just so motivated by the volunteers who have been impacted by gun violence. It's truly heroic to me that you would have experienced this type of loss, and still be able to advocate to save the lives of perfect strangers. I am not a survivor of gun violence, and I do this work every day in their honor. And so, what I have learned is that...I was just an average lady from Indiana, who was outraged. I wrote the book Fight like a Mother for exactly that reason—I wanted to put down on paper how we did this, together, how all of these strangers across the country came together and started the largest grassroots movement in the country. How women can be impactful and empowered. I think, so often, middle-aged women in this country are invisible and ignored, especially black and brown middle-aged women. It is important to fight for the outcome that you want, and that you really can make a difference. And you can change the trajectory of the nation if you band together with like minded people.

MO: How are you looking to ensure this legislation passes the US Senate and gets to President Biden's desk? What will you be doing?

SW: We are already showing up in district at our senators offices. I just saw that our Moms Demand Action volunteers are in Alaska, and Utah, and Louisiana...every state dropping off letters and petitions and asking for in-district meetings. We're also asking for calls into your senators, no matter what political party they represent. We are going to be spending the next week really pushing on the senators and on this administration to make sure that the language and the text put to this framework is invested in programs that are proven to save lives. That is the ideal outcome of this...we are not playing a political game. We are activists who want to save lives. Those people who have been impacted by this issue, this crisis in this country, are not political pawns. And if we can pass something at a federal level that will save lives, we've got to do it. So it's all hands on deck, and I would encourage everyone listening to get off the sidelines and get involved.

MO: Shannon, thank you so much for sharing your story and your work with us today.

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