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Today our organization unveiled a new policy plan to eliminate armed intimidation from politics by prohibiting guns at Capitol buildings and grounds, sensitive government facilities, polling and vote counting locations, and protests on public property. https://everytown.org/report/ending-armed-assaults-on-democracy/
We’re already working closely with our allies in state legislatures, and we saw a related bill passed in Michigan and similar bills introduced in Vermont, Washington, and Virginia. We expect more given the horror we’ve seen on our TV screens.
The chaos and violence that took place at the Capitol last week was horrifying, but not surprising. @MomsDemand volunteers have been confronted by these armed insurrectionists in our communities ever since I started Moms Demand Action in 2012.
At rallies and marches, inside restaurants and grocery stores, and even in statehouses and at gun bill hearings, our volunteers have gone toe-to-toe with gun extremists seeking to intimidate and silence them.
In Virginia, armed men with rifles strapped to their backs have stood in the back of small hearing rooms inside the General Assembly, while our volunteers are in chairs in front of them, facing forward. They say it feels like the men could open fire on their backs at any moment.
In Texas, armed extremists, who bypass statehouse security scanners and lines if they have a concealed carry permit, harass our volunteers as they meet with lawmakers (who, by the way, had to install office panic buttons after confrontations with armed extremists.
And in Colorado Springs at a George Floyd rally attended by our volunteers, men dressed in combat fatigues and holding military-style rifles - like those used by military snipers - stood on top of a parking garage, their guns trained on the crowd of peaceful protesters below.
This dangerous behavior has become a frightening trend. Armed white supremacists at Black Lives Matter marches to intimidate protesters. Armed insurrectionists at statehouses to protest COVID shut downs. And armed vigilantes at polling places to protest the election outcome.
Armed intimidation is gun violence. In 2019, far-right groups were responsible for 2/3 of domestic terrorist attacks and plots. Every nation is home to dangerous ideologies: racists, bigots, misogynists and conspiracy theorists. Only America gives them easy access to arsenals.
Extremists have held our democracy at gunpoint. The Second Amendment was never meant by the Founders to be used to silence free speech, to change lawmakers’ minds, or to alter the outcome of an election.
But the NRA has perverted the Second Amendment to juice gun sales and prop up their political power. Right now, prominent NRA board members are promoting conspiracy theories and posting content threatening members of Congress with “execution by firing squad.”
. @MomsDemand volunteers won't back down from this fight –– and neither will the new administration or the gun sense majority in Congress. We must banish armed intimidation from our politics, and beat the ideology, politicians, and organizations that led to it in the first place.
