Gun-control activists are facing a challenge to stay in the headlines, competing with everything from budget sequestration to immigration reform.
The latest effort by gun-control activists is a million-kids march on Washington. Originally thought to be slated for Feb. 17, organizers indicated in the event page’s comment section they’re looking for a new date.
Planners indicated in a January blog post they want the march to be “just prior to any gun safety legislation being considered by Congress, so our march can have maximum influence on the debate.”
Last week, supporters were told that the march is tentatively scheduled for May.
“Our effort at that time will be focused on showing the House that we will not allow them to recess for summer without instituting the meaningful and common-sense changes in gun control law that the majority of our nation agree with and demand,” wrote volunteer organizer Kristen Pettit. “We are forging alliances with important collaborators to ensure that our march will have the greatest impact. And we promise, though May seems far from now, the wait will be short and worthwhile and our march will have great effect.”
Organizers say they’re seeking a “cultural change” on guns, and on the chosen march participants, “Who could say no to a million kids?”
“Participating in the MKM offers kids the experience of a lifetime, empowering a generation to engage and take action around the issues they care about,” organizers pitch. “The MKM is a potential win-win on every front: political, legislative, cultural, educational.”
Two of the founders of the Million-Kids March idea are Jen Bluestein, communications director at EMILY’s List, and Emily Lockwood, new media director at EMILY’s List, a PAC that soley supports women candidates who back abortion rights.
The director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns said Congress needs to fast-track gun control even while acknowledging “you will never stop all of the shootings.”
“Of course I think we should expect things to be faster,” Mark Glaze said for the 650-mayor group on MSNBC. “The only way that’s gonna happen is if the American people continue to do what they’ve been doing since Newtown and before, which is calling a member of Congress and writing a member of Congress, making sure they know this is a front-burner issue for them, and as long as 33 Americans are murdered with guns every day none of us is moving fast enough.”
He said making the background check system more stringent is “the single biggest thing you can do to get a handle on the gun problem in the country.”
“It is not a complete solution. You will never stop all of the shootings. We’re also supporting a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban and a limit on rounds of ammunition magazines can carry. Those are all part of the picture,” Glaze said.
“For a long time the NRA has been the only game one in town and their electoral strength was vastly exaggerated,” the career strategist added. “Back in November they spent more than $100,000 on only seven Senate races; they lost in six of those. But when you are the only game in town on the electoral side, members of Congress have a real struggle doing what most of them want to do, which is keep their streets safe.”
Who writes the headlines and sub-heads? I read the sub-head, “March pushed to spring,” and was very confused. Spring comes in March every year, doesn’t it?
“Who could say no to a million kids?” Me. I have no problem telling kids No. Do it all the time.
The trick is say no to them before they became kids. Abortion-rights are way ahead of you.
Exactly. That’s one of the definitions of being an adult.
calling a member of Congress and writing a member of Congress, making sure they know this is a front-burner issue for them,
Excellent advice. My Congressmen and Senators know that if any new gun control legislation passes, any at all, I will be supporting their primary opponents. Period. Full stop. I don’t care how they personally voted, if they can’t stop gun control, they are useless to me and should be replaced.
and as long as 33 Americans are murdered with guns every day
Most of which are in Chicago.
So we’ve got a group of people that work hard to expand abortion trying to round up a bunch of kids that don’t like guns. The irony escapes them.
Give any kid on the planet five minutes and five rounds on a gun range and they won’t be marching for gun control any time soon.
Never saw a gun control advocate actually shoot a few rounds on the range that didn’t see things differently after that. And watching Piers Morgan on that range in Texas, you could tell by the look on his face that he was having a good time. Especially when firing on full auto.
“and as long as 33 Americans are murdered with guns every day”
The example of the UK shows us that instead of 33 being murdered with guns every day, we’d likely have 50 murdered with other weapons every day. Almost no one looks at the murder rate in the UK as gun control got more restrictive. From 1968 to 2007, murders relentless went upward. In 1997, they basically outlawed all guns when handguns became illegal as well. That didn’t help and they saw 10 more years of 750+ murders every year. So, gun control in the UK changed what weapons were used in murders, as well as increasing rapes, assaults and robberies.
Our murder rate in the U.K has nearly halved from 2001/2002 to 2011/2012.Violent crime is reduced as well
https://docs.google.com/a/guardian.co.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?
key=0AjI0Eo6IUSaHdFdnd3NrTE81enhLNnlfa0VUdlpDcHc#gid=1
The total number of knife or sharp instrument homicides for 2009/10
was the lowest recorded since 1998/99 when 201 were recorded (data not shown in tables). The
number recorded in 2010/11 is also lower than that recorded for most years over the last decade.
Offences involving the use of a firearm continue to make up a small proportion of recorded crime. In
2010/11, firearm offences accounted for 0.3 per cent of all recorded crimes.
The weapons ban was to try to prevent mass shootings in school’s following Dunblane in 1996.
There has been no further school shootings.
Offences involving the use of firearms peaked with 24,094 offences being recorded by the police in 2003/04. Since then the number of such offences has fallen by 60% to 9,555 recorded offences in 2011/12. The current 16% fall between 2010/11 and 2011/12 is the eighth consecutive annual decrease in firearm offences
“So we’ve got a group of people that work hard to expand abortion trying to round up a bunch of kids that don’t like guns. The irony escapes them.”
Comment of the day!
“any kid, five minutes, five rounds” Yes!!
Abortion-rights PAC and gun-control are not exactly apples and oranges. Abortion has killed more innocent children the last 40 plus years than all of the gun crime combined.
Why don’t we see the same fuss about backyard swimming pools?
Lethal, nearly impossible to conceal, easily verified….
Million kids? A million kids? Where have I seen that number before? Oh yes – It was the answer to the question “What is 83% of the number of kids killed by abortions in 2011?”
I hope these people spend a lot of money on this.
I wonder how they would like to be met by a million abortion opponents carrying pictures with the tiney aborted babies in a bloody pile? Too graphic for the kiddies?
THAT!!
that is exactly what should be done.. make sure to label the graphic pictures with the pro-abortion group’s label and call it fair comment..
I’m always amused by the disproportion over 55 million abortions, including partial births, ignored, business as usual over the years, while the second amendment is hysterically suspended over a unique shooting of under a score of children by a crazy. I guess the new HHS domestic drone program will better monitor all those backyard swimming pools and Marin County assault hot tub clones that nationally kill hundreds of children each year? Tobacco smokers currently paying high sin taxes for their habit will also have to pay a smoker’s premium for the new mandated health care insurance, estimated to add five thousand dollars a year to their insurance costs to cover their dangerous life style choice. So, smokers from the working class have to pay full boat for health care while the one percenter, gay sexer, CEO of Facebook, a corporation that didn’t pay any taxes last year, gets a pass on a dangerous lifestyle choice health surtax for dangerous gay sex. Apparently spirit drinkers, motorcycle riders also known as dentists on Harleys, pot smokers, and people who don’t use condoms with an 18 percent failure rate get a premium pass too. Curious, but since tobacco companies were sued for providing a product that when properly used can make you sick, when are condom makers going to be sued for provisioning the State’s health care mandate for free condoms that can kill you when used properly?
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf