After the devastating shootings in El Paso and Dayton, it seems Republicans are warming to the idea of taking on our national epidemic of gun violence. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell actually said last week that gun legislation will be “front and center” when lawmakers return from their August recess.
But we know lip service is all we’re likely to get. A party bankrolled by NRA billions, that once fought a bill to keep suspected terrorists from purchasing guns, will never go for the sweeping, structural reforms we need to save even a fraction of the 100 Americans who are killed every day in the US with a gun.1
We need universal background checks. We need to ban assault weapons. We need to kick Republicans out of office and elect Democrats in their place.
There are a couple ways you can help do that right now.
- Chip in $5 to each candidate on our Flip Virginia 2019 slate. A package of gun control bills, including a ban on assault-style weapons and a universal background check policy, is ready to pass as soon as both chambers of Virginia’s General Assembly flip—in elections THIS November. Democrats need to pick up only one seat each in the state House and Senate. Virginia’s Republican House Speaker blocked these bills from passing earlier this summer.
- Chip in $5 to each candidate on our 2020 Senate Red to Blue slate, so we can ditch Mitch and remove the biggest roadblock to passing any progressive legislation on any issue, including guns: A Republican-controlled Senate.
- Chip in $5 to our 2020 House Red to Blue slate so we can expand our majority and add more women to Congress. Research from the Center for American Women and Politics shows that historically, women lawmakers have been better champions for gun control legislation. Polling also shows that women voters want gun control more than men.2
- Finally, Chip in $5 to each woman on our Keep Them on the Stage presidential slate, so we can remove the biggest driver of the kind of white-supremacist violence that inspires many of these shootings: Donald Trump.