Moms Demand Action and the Gun Safety Movement: Momentum is on Our Side

Joanna MacGugan, PhD

Ten years ago, on December 14, 2012, I sat down to start my workday, my five-monthold sleeping in his rocker beside me, as details of the grim scenes unfolding in the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut began trickling in. This was the beginning of a new future for my child — lockdown drills, metal detectors, and bulletproof backpacks would soon become a normal part of his childhood. Apart from September 11, I don’t know of any other event in recent American history that has shattered our sense of security or faith in humanity in quite the same way. This is when grassroots activist Shannon Watts started the movement that would become Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (https://momsdemandaction.org). This organization advocates for common-sense gun safety laws; supports local, community-based partners focused on disrupting violence; elects Gun Sense Candidates at every level of government; promotes safe gun storage practices; and raises awareness of life-saving gun safety legislation, such as extreme risk protective orders (also known as “Red Flag” laws) and universal background checks for gun purchases. Everytown for Gun Safety, another grassroots organization, provides the rigorous research that supports our evidence-based strategies for reducing gun violence in America.

After the February 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I attended a statewide Moms Demand Action meeting and met a young single mother who had lost her only child, a bright 17-year-old, to gun violence on the streets of Boston. Her extraordinary strength and commitment to creating positive change, despite her unimaginable grief, was the pivotal moment for me. I stepped in as lead for the Central Massachusetts chapter of Moms Demand Action and got busy growing our team, building community partnerships, and advocating for critical gun safety bills in the State House. Dr. Peter McConarty later joined as co-lead of our local group. Peter draws from his experiences as a family doctor and gun violence survivor to lead discussions on harm reduction in medical settings with our community partners, including the Center for Nonviolent Solutions, Grassroots Central Mass, and the Joint Coalition on Health. He recently discussed his gun violence prevention work as a guest on Dr. James Broadhurst’s cable show, “Health Matters.”

Focusing on the public health dimension of gun violence was a natural fit for our group. From the beginning, we found a strong ally in pediatric surgeon and gun violence survivor Dr. Michael Hirsh at UMass Chan Medical School. Every fall, Dr. Hirsh’s medical students organize an elective course on gun violence that features speakers who are involved in many different dimensions of gun safety. Engaging and sharing our perspectives on gun violence with these inspiring and dedicated students has become a highlight of our partnership with Dr. Hirsh.

Nationwide, Moms Demand Action has plenty of legislative successes to celebrate, and we appear to be winning against the massively powerful gun lobby as more state governments pass common-sense gun safety bills into law. Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have now passed lifesaving Red Flag laws that allow families and law enforcement to seek a court order to temporarily remove firearms from someone in crisis if they pose a danger to themselves or to others (1). Here in Massachusetts, we scored a major victory in the state legislature in 2022, securing a historic $94 million in gun violence prevention funding (2).

But we also deal with daily reminders that our work is rooted in the bleakest of statistics. Mass shootings grab the headlines, but it’s critical to understand that more than 110 Americans die by guns every single day — many from suicide, city violence, or domestic violence. This level of violence does not happen in peer countries. Firearm suicides claim the lives of 23,891 Americans every year, and guns are now the leading cause of death of American children and teens (3). As of February 1, guns have already killed 21 children and 131 teens (4). This number includes children who died from unintentional shootings, most often because adults left their loaded guns unsecured and accessible — a wholly preventable epidemic of gun violence. The data tell us that we have become a nation of gun violence survivors; by early February each year, more Americans are killed with guns than are killed in peer countries in an entire calendar year.

Even though Massachusetts has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country and ranks sixth in the strength of its gun laws, we still see the toll that everyday gun violence takes on our communities (5).

Each year in Massachusetts, guns kill an average of 255 people (56% are suicides) and wound 557, and an average of 20 children and teens die by guns. Worcester county has a rate of 3.4 gun deaths per 100,000 people. We clearly have more work to do to keep our communities safe from gun violence — and this is what keeps Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America volunteers going.

One of our current legislative priorities for Massachusetts involves analyzing and reporting annually on crime gun data to better understand patterns in gun trafficking and improve law enforcement’s efforts to resolve this problem. A second priority bill focuses on prohibiting the purchase or possession of un-serialized, “do it yourself” ghost guns that circumvent state gun safety laws. We also remain committed to electing Gun Sense Candidates up and down the ballot, here in the Commonwealth and across the country. Our volunteers recently scored a major victory by electing Gun Sense Candidate Maura Healey to the governor’s office. The next steps for our Central Massachusetts group involve connecting with Worcester’s veterans organizations to raise awareness of Red Flag laws and safe gun storage practices.

Moms Demand Action is a research-based organization, and the evidence is clear: Gun safety policies save lives (6). We find the strength to keep going because we know there are millions of Americans who agree that our country urgently needs common-sense solutions to this public health crisis. +

Joanna MacGugan, PhD, is a social historian, senior copy editor at Dragonfly Editorial, and co-lead for Central Massachusetts Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

References

1. https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/extreme-risk-law/

2. https://www.everytown.org/press/victory-for-gun-safetymassachusetts-legislature-makes-major-gains-on-gun-safety-toend-session-lays-groundwork-for-important-gun-safety-packagemoms-demand-action-students-demand-action-respond/

3. https://everystat.org/

4. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/, accessed 1/18/2023.

5. Statistics for gun violence in Massachusetts come from the following sources: https://everystat.org/, https:// everytownresearch.org/rankings/, and https://www.everytown. org/state/massachusetts/.

6. https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/