Eight years ago today, the day after the shooting in Newtown, I created a Facebook page that became @MomsDemand. I never imagined that, as part of @Everytown, we'd be larger than the @NRA.

An online discussion grew into an offline movement of 6 million volunteers and supporters.

In the last eight years, @MomsDemand volunteers have helped pass over 300 gun safety laws, including background checks in 22 states and DC, red flag laws in 19 states and DC, and laws that disarm domestic abusers in 29 states and DC.

This year in Virginia, after we helped flip both legislative chambers in 2019, we helped pass new laws requiring background checks on all gun sales, extreme risk orders, secure storage requirements, limits on gun purchases, and a voluntary “no-buy” list to help prevent suicide.

We also helped pass a Virginia law giving local governments more authority to regulate guns, and then our volunteers passed multiple local ordinances - from Richmond to Charlottesville - to prohibit guns in sensitive places. These ordinances impact over 2 million Virginians.

In 2020, we joined with partners in support of racial justice to advocate for police reform and increase accountability. CA, CT, CO, MN, NV, NM, NY, OR, UT and VA, among others, passed police reform laws to raise standards, promote transparency, and help prevent police shootings.

We’ve also provided resources and grants to frontline organizations working on public safety alternatives to policing. This year alone, we’ll grant $2.5 million dollars in funding to 59 groups on the ground working on gun violence prevention.

And @MomsDemand volunteers working in the states have helped secure $60 million dollars in funding for violence prevention programs in places like California, Washington and Virginia. The programs are critical to interrupting city gun violence exacerbated by the pandemic.

We're also educating Americans about secure gun storage through http://besmartforkids.org . In 2020, some of the larger school districts to institute a secure storage notification policy after our outreach included San Diego; Houston; Phoenix; Tucson; Denver; and Essex, Vermont.

Because of @MomsDemand volunteers work on BeSMART, ONE MILLION students across the country now live in a school district that has passed a resolution requiring schools to educate parents about the critical importance of secure firearm storage in keeping schools and students safe.

Every year, @MomsDemand volunteers also defeat hundreds of @NRA-backed bills, with a win rate of over 90 percent against the gun lobby for five years in a row. These bills include arming teachers, forcing guns onto college campuses, Stand Your Ground, and permitless carry.

This year alone, @MomsDemand volunteers encouraged 17 states to reject permitless carry bills; 15 states to reject bills allowing guns in K-12 schools; nine states to reject bills forcing guns onto college and university campuses; and five states to reject Stand Your Ground.

The pandemic could have caused widespread disruptions to our activism throughout 2020. Instead, @MomsDemand and #StudentsDemandAction volunteers seamlessly pivoted to digital advocacy, trading their usual rallies for virtual meetings that were often bigger and more inclusive.

This year, #StudentsDemandAction grew to over 400 groups across the US and registered 100,000+ new voters, hosted summits, worked on state legislative campaigns, supported city gun violence initiatives, and participated in electoral work - all while juggling classes and jobs.

Our volunteers made 3.7 million calls and texts to voters in 2020, and helped send the strongest gun safety ticket to the White House. We elected 1,300 gun sense candidates up and down the ballot, including two new champions in the Senate in Arizona and Colorado.

Over 100 @MomsDemand volunteers ran for office up and down the ballot this year; 43 volunteers won their races, including Lucy McBath and Marie Newman. And over 30 volunteers won seats in statehouses - including states like Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio.

And did I mention we're exposing the @NRA's toxic agenda? Thanks to our efforts, everyone knows the NRA is an organization in crisis, and losing its grip on political power amid infighting, investigations and allegations of millions of dollars in self-dealing and lavish spending.

In addition to its mounting legal troubles and skyrocketing legal fees, it was revealed this year that the NRA’s membership revenue had plummeted, and it had run a deficit for the fourth year in a row.

Due in part to declining revenue and its immense legal, financial and internal turmoil, the NRA could only muster half of its political spending from 2016 this cycle –– and it devoted most of that money to reelecting President Trump, which turned out to be a very bad investment.

Eight years ago, after the horrific Sandy Hook School shooting, @MomsDemand fiercely and fearlessly took on the most powerful lobby this nation has ever seen – and we're winning. Don’t let anyone tell you that’s not true.

Be angry, but stay hopeful. And act.

Addendum: Our corporate work! @MomsDemand has successfully urged dozens of major restaurants, retailers and grocery stores to prohibit open carry, including Starbucks, Chipotle, Walmart, Albertsons, CVS, Wegmans, Walgreens and Kroger.

And this summer, after heavily armed gun extremists showed up at a Subway in Raleigh, we used the hashtag #footlongsnotfirearms to make Subway the first privately held restaurant franchise to change its open carry policy.

This thread is just a small sample of our successes in the past eight years and in 2020 - go here to learn more: https://everytown.org/year-in-review-2020/