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Moms who became gun control activists are now running for office
Amber Gustafson, a mother of three, launched her campaign for the Iowa State Senate the day after this month's gun massacre in Las Vegas.
She had been planning the event for weeks, so despite the terrible news and the calls she got from friends and fellow gun-safety activists all night, she did not consider postponing. The tragedy, in fact, underscored the reason she had gotten involved in politics
The time for fighting from the outside had passed, Gustafson believed.
After spending years lobbying lawmakers to pass gun control solutions, she now wants to be the one in office.
Gustafson is one of a growing number of gun control activists, mostly women, seeking elected office next year, especially at the state and local level.
An increasingly powerful grassroots group
The trend is a perhaps a sign of a changing conversation nationwide over gun safety, but is also clearly the result of the work of an increasingly powerful grassroots lobbying group, Moms Demand Action. The organization has encouraged its volunteers to not only petition lawmakers, but run themselves
“I definitely see a huge surge of candidates who want to run on this issue, candidates who want to make it a key part of their primary, who are trying to tell voters that being a gun violence prevention champion is a central issue of their campaign,” said Isabelle James, the political director at Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, an organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband. Giffords was shot in the head in 2011 while meeting with constituents in Arizona.
More at ...
Moms who became gun control activists are now running for office
Amber Gustafson, a mother of three, launched her campaign for the Iowa State Senate the day after this month's gun massacre in Las Vegas.
She had been planning the event for weeks, so despite the terrible news and the calls she got from friends and fellow gun-safety activists all night, she did not consider postponing. The tragedy, in fact, underscored the reason she had gotten involved in politics
The time for fighting from the outside had passed, Gustafson believed.
After spending years lobbying lawmakers to pass gun control solutions, she now wants to be the one in office.
Gustafson is one of a growing number of gun control activists, mostly women, seeking elected office next year, especially at the state and local level.
An increasingly powerful grassroots group
The trend is a perhaps a sign of a changing conversation nationwide over gun safety, but is also clearly the result of the work of an increasingly powerful grassroots lobbying group, Moms Demand Action. The organization has encouraged its volunteers to not only petition lawmakers, but run themselves
“I definitely see a huge surge of candidates who want to run on this issue, candidates who want to make it a key part of their primary, who are trying to tell voters that being a gun violence prevention champion is a central issue of their campaign,” said Isabelle James, the political director at Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, an organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband. Giffords was shot in the head in 2011 while meeting with constituents in Arizona.
More at ...
Moms who became gun control activists are now running for office
