NEW YORK – Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, today celebrated another remarkable legislative session for gun safety in the states. This session, state legislatures have already passed more than 60 gun safety policies across the country, with many laws passing with bipartisan support.
“Take a look at our legislative victories this session and you’ll see that our movement is stronger than ever,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action. “While the NRA continues to try, and fails, to grasp onto power and relevance, we’re making historic moves in purple, red and blue states. This success is a testament to our powerhouse volunteers who rallied at their state houses, demanded action from their lawmakers and refused to let extremist lawmakers put gun lobby profits over public safety. We are so grateful to the gun sense lawmakers who fought alongside us, and we can’t wait to keep building on our momentum next session.”
“This year, the gun safety movement made incredible strides to prevent gun violence in our communities,” said Monisha Henley, senior vice president for government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety. “We made gains with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to take real action on unintentional shootings and to find innovative approaches to keep DIY machine guns out of our communities, and more. Gun violence isn’t a partisan issue and our movement is ready to welcome anyone – regardless of party – who is committed to ending gun violence once and for all.”
“This movement is changing the tide on America’s gun violence crisis one legislative session at a time,” said Reem Khalifa, a member of the Students Demand Action National Organizing Board. “When guns are the leading cause of death for young people in the United States, we won’t take no for an answer. Our generation is eager to build on the progress that was made this year because make no mistake: We’re just getting started.”
A Snapshot of the Life-Saving Progress Made This Year:
- In the first legislative session since the deadly mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, lawmakers enacted legislation to require background checks on firearm purchases, require a 72-hour waiting period and fund an Office of Violence Prevention; and
- Lawmakers across the country made incredible gains to pass and strengthen secure storage laws, including in Virginia and Colorado. And, in Rhode Island, legislators enacted the strongest secure storage law in the nation; and
- Red and blue states, including Virginia, Mississippi and Maryland, passed legislation to prohibit auto-sears, devices that convert semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic weapons; and
- Legislators across the country secured more than $422 million in investments for Community Violence Intervention and gun violence prevention programs, including in Florida and Virginia; and
- Gun-sense lawmakers in seven states, including Colorado and Vermont, passed legislation to hold the gun industry accountable for the outsized role that it plays in our gun violence epidemic.
While gun-sense lawmakers worked to pass common-sense gun safety laws this session, lawmakers were also hard at work pushing back on the gun lobby’s dangerous ‘guns everywhere’ agenda. This year, gun safety advocates helped to defeat 218 gun lobby-backed bills across the country.
A Snapshot of the Gun Safety Movement’s Defensive Victories This Year:
- As extremist lawmakers continue their dangerous attempts to arm teachers, gun safety advocates prevented the passage of reckless legislation to arm teachers, or to incentivize teachers to arm themselves, in Idaho and Alaska; and
- In Florida, extremist legislators failed to advance legislation that would have dismantled the common-sense gun safety laws passed in the wake of the Parkland shooting; and
- While gun lobby-backed legislators in Arizona attempted to advance dangerous legislation this year, including a bill that would encourage vigilante violence against immigrants, the session concluded without any dangerous gun bills becoming law.
In addition to the passage of life-saving legislation this session, gun-sense lawmakers across the country have also been hard at work to find new and innovative ways to prevent gun violence by holding the gun industry accountable.
In New York, lawmakers introduced first-of-its-kind legislation to hold the firearm manufacturer Glock accountable for enabling the spread of machine guns in our communities by refusing to redesign its pistols, which are uniquely susceptible to being converted into machine guns using a type of auto sear, commonly known as a “Glock switch.” The bill would prohibit future sales of Glocks and other similarly convertible pistols in New York, aiming to give Glock a financial incentive to finally fix the problem it created. New York legislators also introduced a second piece of legislation to update the state’s landmark gun industry accountability law to explicitly require firearm manufacturers to take steps to ensure their handguns cannot be easily turned into machine guns with Glock switches; this legislation has now passed both chambers and awaits Governor Hochul’s signature.
In New Mexico, legislators introduced historic new legislation that would prohibit the sale, transfer, and possession of gas-operated semi automatic firearms and large-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. New Mexico’s innovative new approach to banning assault weapons is modeled after federal legislation introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich.
This year’s progress builds off of historic gains made last session, where state legislatures passed a record-breaking 130 gun safety policies. State lawmakers last year also blocked 95 percent of the gun lobby’s agenda, including hundreds of attempts by the gun lobby to weaken gun laws, and allocated $693 million to gun violence prevention efforts. Tens of thousands of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers and gun violence survivors made this work possible through tireless advocacy in their communities.