On Wednesday a group of mothers from across the country will descend on Washington to urge the adoption of common sense gun laws. “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America” was founded the day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and now has 80,000 members in 80 chapters nationwide. Joining these moms as part of the push for gun laws are prominent politicians including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
Co-Founder Shannon Watts joined Monday’s show to discuss the group’s mission and describe her hopes for Wednesday’s march and meetings with various lawmakers. Watts explained how Sandy Hook shocked all the mothers involved and prompted them to voluntarily spend 15 hours a day to help enact gun laws at both the state and federal level. She said the group is determined to fight until stricter gun laws are instated and there are “not only background checks, we have an assault weapons ban, and we have some kind of regulation system to track ammunition.”
“There are some very easy fixes that can be done,” she said. “We will no longer sit by and allow our members of Congress to turn their backs on common sense legislation. It is absolutely unbelievable that the NRA has been allowed to drive these laws for so long not just in Congress but at state legislatures.”
On the two-month anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre a crowd of 5,500 showed up in Hartford, CT. Since that march, Governor Malloy has come out with a bold agenda on gun-control laws. The group is hoping for similar results after their march on Washington this Wednesday.
Abby Borovitz