Volunteers Traveled more than 16,000 Miles, Making More Than 75 Stops in 23 Geographically and Politically Diverse States + DC; Full Video of Today’s D.C. Event is Available Here
Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action Supporters, Gun Violence Survivors, Republicans, Gun Owners, Sportsmen, Veterans, Faith Leaders, and Elected Leaders Traveled Across the Country Hosting Roadtrip Events, Passing Along Messages to Lawmakers and Calls for Action — From Community to Community — All the Way to Washington D.C.
This Road Trip is a Key Part of Everytown’s Ongoing Efforts — Including Seven-Figures in TV and Digital Ads — to Urge Senate to Pass Background Check Legislation
NEW YORK — Today, Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, concluded the “Road Trip for Background Checks” –– a ten-day series of volunteer-driven Road Trip events taking place across the country, all headed toward Washington D.C., in order to call for U.S. Senators to pass background check legislation.
Along seven different routes nationwide, a bipartisan group of volunteers, gun violence survivors, gun owners, veterans, faith leaders, and elected leaders traveled more than 16,000 miles and made more than 75 stops in 23 states to decorate a mural and collect personal stories, photos of loved ones killed by gun violence, and letters to Congress. The mural and messages were driven or delivered from stop-to-stop, state-to-state, over ten days, and today, they were assembled in Washington D.C. and delivered to Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in a socially distanced press conference. Full remarks from today’s event are available upon request. The full video of today’s event is available here.
Demonstrating the broad, bipartisan coalition supporting background check legislation, “Road Trip for Background Checks” featured stops in 23 geographically and politically diverse states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, plus D.C. Ninety-three percent of Americans –– including 89% of Republicans and 89% of gun owners –– support legislation to expand background checks.
“The Senate has a historic opportunity to pass the first significant gun safety law in 25 years, and this Road Trip is just the beginning of our efforts to see that through,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Democrats, Republicans, gun owners and non-gun owners all overwhelmingly support background checks, and there’s a good reason why: they are common-sense, constitutional, and will save lives. There’s no question that the Senate will be a tough fight, but it’s one that we can win.”
“Across the country, our volunteers and supporters have mobilized, organized, and urged the Senate to pass meaningful background checks because the gun violence that kills more than 100 people and wounds hundreds more every day cannot continue,” said Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action. “Lawmakers must act now, and our grassroots movement of six million supporters won’t stop fighting until President Biden signs a bill into law.”
“People often tell stories about how their lives –– their senses of safety –– were shattered by their first brush with gun violence, and I completely understand that. But for me, and for many people in our country who grew up in the inner cities like I did, experiences with gun violence are a constant nightmare. They are an endless painful experience that becomes a seemingly inescapable norm of life: that is a constant threat,” said Rev. Emanuel Lipscomb, a survivor of gun violence from D.C. who has dedicated much of his life to stopping city gun violence. “But now, after 25 long years of waiting, we have a chance to break that broken cycle of a near broken people. To do that, we need more than thoughts and prayers from our elected leaders. We need action on gun safety, and that means passing life-saving background check legislation.”
“This year, I will turn 18-years-old. In my lifetime, I have witnessed the impacts of gun violence firsthand, I have experienced the demeaning microaggressions that come with being an Asian American woman, and I have been empowered to fight for justice and equity –– but one thing I haven’t yet seen is federal action on gun safety,” said Jeannie She, a gun violence survivor, a high school senior, and a member of the Students Demand Action National Advisory Board. “Young people in the United States have been waiting our entire lives for this. It’s time that we get it.”
“I’m a gun owner who fully supports the Second Amendment, and I’ll be the first person to tell you that background checks are the common-sense, constitutional policy we need to save lives in this moment,” said Nicole Buzzetto-Hollywood, a gun owner and Moms Demand Action volunteer. “Background checks aren’t about taking guns away or burdening legal gun owners –– they’re about ensuring that people who shouldn’t have guns can’t buy them from a total stranger selling a gun at a gun show or online with no background check and no questions asked. This campaign was just the beginning of our efforts to urge Senators to act, not the end, and we will do everything in our power to pass landmark background check legislation into law.”
Highlights from the Road Trip can be found here, and the below graphic details Road Trip events across 23 states and DC:
“Road Trip for Background Checks” is part of a multifaceted Everytown campaign to urge the Senate to act on background checks. Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund has committed to spending at least seven-figures on TV and digital ads calling for the Senate to pass background check legislation, and launched its first TV and digital ads urging “More Than Thoughts and Prayers” to address the gun violence crisis earlier this month.
The full video of today’s event is available here, and remarks as prepared are available upon request to [email protected].