In Atlanta last weekend at the Georgia World Congress Center, people were pointing assault rifles directly at you everywhere you looked.
Posters of National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre declared this to be “Freedom’s safest place.” Actor Tom Selleck touted guns rather than the reverse mortgages he normally plugs. The 17th annual convention of the National Rifle Association was living up to its promise of “15 Acres of Guns and Gear,” and the approximately 80,000 attendees were happily surrounded by firearms and their accouterments.
There was a room set up for target practice and a man passing out safety glasses. There were display cases filled with trauma kits and entry/exit wound packs. A mannequin sported a bra holster. The convention center was packed with young and old, men and women, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons and people of every race, creed and color. They wore T-shirts shouting “Ban Idiots,” “Terrorists Suck,” “Trump-Pence.” One man in a wolfskin, complete with tail, bit into a huge turkey drumstick with sharp feral teeth.
Outside, the message was different. A truck idling at the curb displayed a mobile billboard, sponsored by resistance group Betsy Riot, with this message:
“You’re not a good guy with a gun. You’re a frightened boy with a gun fetish.”
East of the convention, 400 people gathered on Saturday at Woodruff Park, a green oasis donated by a former Coca-Cola executive. The day before, several hundred people from the Georgia Alliance for Social Justice had staged a die-in in the springy grass for a “die-in” to call attention to gun violence.
The messages on Saturday were similar, mostly sent via handmade signs: “Guns make killing easy.” “Make America Think Again.” “No Campus Carry.” Protesters wore red t-shirts bearing the name of one of the largest organizations fighting gun violence in America — EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY, founded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg — and the name of the grassroots organization founded by Shannon Watts after the shooting deaths of 20 children and 12 adults in Newtown, Connecticut: MOMS DEMAND ACTION FOR GUN SENSE IN AMERICA.
Moms Demand Action is a movement of politically active American citizens who are pugnacious about pushing public safety measures to protect people from gun violence. Three million strong, the group has the support of Florida Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy (D-Winter Park), who in March of this year introduced the Gun Violence Research Act, intended to repeal a federal provision that forbids research into gun violence and firearm injury prevention.
The NRA boasts 5 million members, powerful lobbyists and the endorsement of the sitting president. In Donald Trump’s address to the NRA convention, he said, “An eight-year assault on Second Amendment rights has come to a crashing end.”
Yet anyone who thinks Moms Demand Action is fighting a losing battle would be underestimating them. One of the chants at their rally: Fight back.
There is irony in Trump’s labeling tighter gun rules an “assault,” because assaults are what the members of Moms Demand Action are trying to prevent. After the Pulse nightclub massacre in downtown Orlando last June, in what law enforcement officials described as an act of domestic terrorism, Watts said, “Hatred comes in many forms, but there is no reason to ensure it is easily armed.”
It was with that goal in mind that protesters gathered in Atlanta on April 29. They faced a podium with the placard “Stand up to the NRA.” George state legislator Elena Parent, responding to the threat of looser gun laws, said, “We know that guns are deadly weapons and just like anything else with the potential to kill, like a car, we must be smart about them to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”
Legendary civil rights leader, inauguration boycotter and Georgia Congressman John Lewis voiced similar sentiments to enthusiastic applause.
“Sometimes you have to have a sense of righteous indignation,” he said. “Well, I have it. I’m mad and I’m fired up. Maybe we have to organize sit-ins on the state capitols all across America. All of us must act. Stand up. Speak out. Be brave, be courageous, be bold. And get in the way.”
Kathy Wright, an elementary school teacher who came to the rally from Columbia, South Carolina, worried that the NRA is out to remove gun-free zones at schools, reduce state requirements for background checks, and arm school security guards.
“We don’t want to scare the kids, but we’re going to have more in-depth security drills, and that concerns me,” Wright said. “It isn’t your grandfather’s NRA anymore. All this stuff is being pushed by the gun manufacturers. They sit on the board of the NRA and it’s very disturbing. It’s particularly disturbing to see our president endorsing this kind of ridiculous rhetoric.”
She may have been referring to a recent congressional resolution blocking a rule that keeps guns out of the hands of people with a history of mental illness. Trump, who received $30 million from the NRA for his successful presidential campaign, obediently signed it. Emboldened, the NRA is currently working to ratify a law that would require all states to recognize each other’s concealed carry permits.
Lucy McBath is a gun violence “survivor” whose only son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed by Michael Dunn at a Jacksonville gas station in 2012 over a dispute about “loud music.” She was encouraged by the activism displayed at the NRA protest. An active lecturer and gun control advocate, she recognizes the urgency for work at the state level.
“We’re seeing more coalitions for reducing gun violence pop up,” she said. “There have always been gun violence prevention agents within smaller regions in the urban communities. And they are definitely understaffed and underfunded. But now we’re starting to tie in the larger national organizations to the smaller ones. We’re building coalitions, we’re building momentum. And that’s where it starts. We’re the Davids, they’re [the NRA] the Goliaths. We’re just systematically chopping down all the bills, all the legislation.”
The aim, McBath continued, is to help the general public have a clear understanding that these “Davids” aren’t going after gun owners who adhere to gun laws. Their target is reckless legislation at the state level.
“There’s a lot of fear-mongering, a lot of untruths in the gun lobbying,” she said. “What we’re doing is spending as much time as possible letting people know what our policies really are. Specifically within their own states. Gun lobbyists go to the state legislators and say, ‘We’re going to keep you in your seats, but you have to fund this legislation.’ So then the state legislators are beholden to the gun lobby. We’re bringing this truth to the light. We’re exposing the NRA leadership. Not the law-abiding gun owners. Because they agree with us about this dangerous extremist gun culture.”
It isn’t the first time advocates for gun control have tried to make their voices heard at such an event, and it won’t be the last.
“Every year, we go to the city where the convention is,” McBath said. “We don’t picket, but we hold rallies. We build, we organize, we bring people together like we did today. We educate them, we empower them to stand up, and that’s how the change happens.”
A lot of change is happening all right. Climate change, health care change, immigration policy change. Yet, as the NRA protest rally proves, none of it will go unchallenged.
Jeanna Trugman, a Moms Demand Action organizer, said the fight against a powerful industry that values its profits over safety is part of a greater struggle.
“We have to do better as people.”
This article appears in May 4-11, 2017.