Author: Melissa Block / Source: NPR.org
Gun control advocates view 2018 as a turning point in their campaign to strengthen the country’s gun laws.
They cite widespread success in passing laws through state legislatures. They’re also buoyed by Democratic victories in the midterm elections, which flipped control of the House of Representatives.
Another benchmark: In this election cycle, gun control groups outspent gun rights groups for the first time ever.The advocates’ optimism comes after a series of devastating mass shootings in 2018:
Feb. 14: Seventeen people killed — 14 students and three staff — at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
May 18: Ten people killed — eight students and two teachers — at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas
June 28: Five staffers killed at the Capital Gazette newspaper office in Annapolis, Md.
Oct. 27: Eleven worshippers killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh
Nov. 7: Twelve killed, plus the shooter, at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Gun control groups point to February’s Parkland school shooting, in particular, as a defining moment.
Don’t see the graphic above? Click here.
Within weeks of the Parkland massacre, Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott — who previously had an A+ rating from the NRA — broke with the group and signed a broad package of new gun restrictions.
“I was very surprised,” says Allison Anderman, managing attorney with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The scope of Florida’s legislation was especially notable, coming as it did in a state that has earned the nickname “The Gunshine State” for its permissive gun laws.
“To pass a package of bills that included an extreme risk protection order, raised the minimum age to purchase guns, prohibited bump stocks, extended waiting periods, and designated $2 million in funding for urban gun violence reduction programs, I think was tremendous,” Anderman says.
Soon after that, Phil Scott, the Republican governor of Vermont — another gun-friendly state — signed the most extensive gun control measures that state has seen.
According to the Giffords Center, this year marks a “tectonic shift” for gun control legislation in the states. By its count, more than half the states passed dozens of gun control measures. That includes eight states, plus the District of Columbia, that passed extreme risk protection orders, known as “red flag” laws.
Contrast that with 2013, after the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., when states passed more laws loosening gun restrictions, rather than tightening them.
In state legislatures this year, Anderman says, “the bipartisan effort was significant, and not something that we have really seen in previous years.”
She credits much of that momentum to the student activists from Parkland who quickly mobilized after the shooting and became a vocal…
The post 2018 Brought A ‘Tectonic Shift’ In The Gun Control Movement, Advocates Say appeared first on FeedBox.