View the Everytown Action Plan Here and Learn More About the Campaign to #BreakThePattern at LetsBreakThePattern.org
In January, Everytown Will Launch a Campaign to #BreakThePattern, Starting With Passing Legislation To Require Background Checks on Unlicensed Gun Sales Through Congress and a Proactive Legislative Agenda in State Legislatures Across the Country
NEW YORK – Following the midterm elections, in which gun sense candidates won the U.S. House of Representatives and achieved significant state legislative and gubernatorial victories, Everytown for Gun Safety is unveiling its five-point action plan to #BreakThePattern of gun violence by passing common-sense gun laws. The plan is our roadmap to passing stronger laws at the federal level, where lawmakers will now have the opportunity to enact the first major gun safety law in 15 years, and the state and local level, where more than 20 states have passed gun safety legislation since the Parkland mass shooting.
In January, Everytown will launch a nationwide campaign to #BreakThePattern, starting with passing legislation to require background checks on unlicensed gun sales in Congress, and new state legislative initiatives in places where progress on common-sense gun safety reform has been stalled.
“In electing a gun sense majorities in the House of Representatives and key states, the American people sent a clear message to their elected leaders: Now is the time to break the pattern of gun violence by passing common-sense gun laws,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Everytown’s five-point action plan provides a clear roadmap for lawmakers, and the first milestone is building a better background check system to ensure that guns don’t fall into the wrong hands.”
The Everytown Action Plan is straightforward: five policy priorities that would make a sizable impact on reducing the gun violence that kills 96 Americans every day and wounds hundreds more.
These priorities include policies that have the overwhelming support of the American people, including clear majorities of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, gun owners, Trump voters and self-identified conservatives, according to recent polling from Everytown.
- 1. Keeping Guns Out of the Wrong Hands – A Better Background Check System. Background checks on gun sales are the foundation of any effort to reduce gun violence. Lawmakers need to close loopholes in the system, such as those that allow people to buy guns without a background check.
2. Protecting Kids and Communities – Supporting Red Flag Laws and Responsible Access to Firearms. To reduce gun suicides and keep our children safe from mass shootings, lawmakers must pursue policies like Red Flag laws, which allow family and law enforcement to intervene before deadly tragedies involving firearms take place if someone poses a threat to themselves or others. Lawmakers must also limit easy access to firearms and accessories capable of inflicting mass casualties and encourage safe and responsible storage of all guns.
3. Addressing America’s Uniquely Lethal Domestic Abuse Problem – Disarming Domestic Abusers. More than half of women murdered with guns in America are killed by an intimate partner or family member, and women are five times more likely to be killed in a domestic confrontation when a gun is present. Lawmakers must strengthen laws that help keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.
4. Combating Daily Gun Violence – Supporting Research, Law Enforcement and Local Solutions. The government needs to support law enforcement, researchers and local communities in their efforts to combat daily gun violence by funding new research into gun violence; community-driven, evidence-based interventions to curb city gun violence; and new tools to help law enforcement collect evidence, trace all crime guns, reduce trafficking, and solve gun crimes.
5. Holding the Gun Industry Accountable – Repealing Gun Industry Immunity to Promote Safer Guns. Lawmakers must repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which shields the gun industry from accountability for business practices that directly threaten public safety and put American lives at risk while removing any cost for failing to make guns safer or for marketing weapons that have no place in the hands of civilians.
Read more about the Everytown Action Plan here.
In order to follow through on this agenda across the country, in January Everytown will launch a new campaign to #BreakThePattern at www.letsbreakthepattern.org.
For far too long, gun violence in America has followed a predictable pattern. A tragic shooting captures the nation. The country mourns. Pundits pontificate. Then the gun lobby gets in the way of making meaningful change. The campaign features a pattern of repeating iconography to represent this cycle.
But, the all too familiar cycle is changing. More than 20 states passed new gun safety laws this year, and Americans spoke loud and clear in the election by voting for new gun sense majorities across the country.
Everytown and Moms Demand Action will mobilize its 5 million supporters, and the millions more who support common-sense gun safety, around its five-point action plan, and in January, Everytown will launch a campaign to #BreakThePattern starting with passing background checks legislation in Congress.