Join Youth in Calling for Congress to Reject Donations from the NRA

From Moms Rising (https://www.momsrising.org/):

The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day last week was the eighth school shooting of 2018 – the eighth – which is more than one school shooting per week.[1] The numbers are staggering. Since Columbine in 1998, more than 150,000 primary and secondary school students have experienced a school shooting.[2]

When our schools are no longer safe, how can Congress continue to do nothing but wring its hands over America’s gun violence problem? It’s unconscionable.

Join us in telling them actions speak louder than words — and now is the time to act for gun safety at https://action.momsrising.org/sign/RejectNRApledge/.

Florida school shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez, a senior in high school, got to the heart of the issue in no time flat. In a powerful speech at a gun safety rally in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday,[3] which left us in tears, Emma railed: “To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you!”

Emma is right: The influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is driving our government’s massive failure to even attempt to reduce gun violence. Politicians who continue to accept campaign contributions from the NRA and gun industry PACs implicitly support an all-types-of-guns-everywhere-for-everyone agenda, which points in only one direction: more gun violence.

MomsRising is taking Emma’s lead.

Join us in telling members of Congress to pledge to reject donations from the NRA and the corporate PACs of gun manufacturers.

Even as our children are dying, Congress hasn’t yet passed complete background checks for all gun purchases. [4] We still allow the open and relatively easy sale of military-style assault weapons with high capacity magazines, like the AR-15 that was used in the Florida mass shooting and many other massacres.[5] Bump stocks that make a gun into an automatic weapon remain widely available. [6] This are all big problems. By accepting this money, politicians are nothing less than complicit in the more than 100,000 shooting deaths and injuries Americans suffer each and every year.[7]

In her speech, Emma directed this question to politicians: “If your money was as threatened as us, would your first thought be, how is this going to reflect on my campaign? Which should I choose? Or would you choose us, and if you answered us, will you act like it for once?”

We call on members of Congress to answer Emma’s question!

It’s time to choose the safety of our children above everything, and to act like it by pledging to reject donations from the NRA and gun industry PACs.

Something is happening. When Emma Gonzalez spoke, she projected the pain and sense of betrayal shared by her entire generation over the fact that adults have not delivered on our most sacred charge: To keep them safe. Now Emma and young people across the country are calling BS on adult excuses for failing to achieve any progress on gun safety. They are rising up to fight for their own safety and future.

As adults, our job now is to help our children succeed where we have failed. We hear them and support them as they begin to speak their truth to power to save their own lives.

Join us in supporting them! Sign now. https://action.momsrising.org/sign/RejectNRApledge/?t=8&akid=10454%2E2540879%2EXOjIY0

*Please post this action link on Facebook and Twitter — and forward this email to everyone you know who cares about the safety of our children, so they can sign too. Share this with the young people in your life to let them know that you love them and support any effort they may make to fight for their gun safety.

We join our children. There can be no more excuses for failing to protect them from gun violence.

P.S. MomsRising is supporting these three important actions where young people are leading the way in the fight for gun safety:

1–> Wednesday, March 14: #Enough – A National School Walk Out! The Women’s March Youth EMPOWER Team is calling for a seventeen-minute (1 minute for every life lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School) national school walk out on Wednesday, March 14, 10am in all timezones. *Follow @WomensMarch on Twitter to get real time updates.
2–> Saturday, March 24th: #March4OurLives – Student survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL are calling for a march on Washington, D.C. and also in cities across our nation on Saturday, March 24. Go to March for Our Lives for more information. *Follow @AMarch4OurLives on Twitter to get real time updates.
3–> Friday, April 20th: #NationalSchoolWalkout – Other student and education groups are calling for a longer-term student walk out on the anniversary of Columbine. *Follow @schoolwalkoutUS on Twitter to get real time updates: