Guns in America
Gun control is one of the most divisive issues in the U.S. A small group of Conn alums is striving to detoxify the debate while seeking reasonable solutions to halt gun violence.
On the morning of June 14, former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords stared at her television, unable to look away from the eerily familiar scenes she had hoped she’d never see again.
Bystanders running to safety. First responders rushing to help the injured. Confusion. Fear. Terror.
Four people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., had been shot at a congressional charity baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia. They were now members of a club no one wants to be in: the more than 114,000 Americans shot each year.
“In the days and weeks to come, I know from personal experience what to expect,” Giffords wrote in The Washington Post.
Six years earlier, a few weeks into her third term as the Democratic representative for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, Giffords was shot in a mass shooting outside a Safeway supermarket in Tucson. Six of her constituents were killed, 12 more were injured.
“As a nation, we will debate violence and honor service…We will debate the availability and use of guns,” her piece continued.
“We know, as always, that no one law could prevent a shooting like this. But we also know that we must acknowledge a problem: an unacceptable rate of gun violence in this country. And we must acknowledge that a deadly problem like this brings a responsibility to find solutions.”
Giffords, herself a proud gun owner, never intended to make gun violence prevention her life’s work. But just shy of two years into her recovery, 20 children and six adults were killed on Dec. 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Giffords and her husband, retired Navy Captain and astronaut Mark Kelly, met with the victims’ families.
That January, on the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting, Giffords and Kelly founded Americans for Responsible Solutions, a nonprofit and super PAC to lobby for stricter gun control in an effort to prevent violence.
“[Giffords and Kelly] decided they had had enough,” said Bettina Weiss ’15, one of four Connecticut College alumni to have worked for ARS.
“They thought, ‘There has to be some sort of common-ground, bipartisan solution to gun violence.’”
BACKGROUND CHECKS
As a communications associate for ARS, which recently merged with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Weiss spends much of her time raising awareness about gun violence. She’s grown accustomed to rattling off the startling statistics.
“Ninety-one people are killed every day by a gun in the U.S.,” Weiss said. “American women are 11 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than women in peer countries.”
Mass shootings garner the lion’s share of media attention, but the vast majority of America’s gun violence takes a different form: domestic violence, urban violence or suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 60 percent of the 33,000 gun deaths each year are self-inflicted. Guns are used in more than two-thirds of all homicides, and a 2003 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found women who have suffered abuse are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser owns a firearm.
“One law can’t stop all gun violence,” Weiss said, echoing Giffords’ op-ed. “But there are some commonsense steps we can take to save lives.”
At the top of ARS’s list is instituting universal background checks, which prohibit convicted felons, domestic abusers and people with certain mental health histories from buying or possessing firearms. Despite overwhelming support among the general public—a June 28 Quinnipiac University poll found 94 percent of Americans support background checks for all gun buyers—federal law doesn’t require background checks for private gun sales, which account for an estimated 40 percent of all gun sales in the U.S.
“Licensed dealers need to run background checks. But if you buy a gun from an individual at a gun show? No background check. Convicted felons can buy guns off the internet, no questions asked,” Weiss said.
The last major national effort to pass universal background checks came in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting when ARS was in its infancy. A slate of stricter gun control measures was proposed; the bill included an amendment that would close most background check loopholes. Polls showed the amendment, crafted by a Democrat from West Virginia and a Republican from Pennsylvania, had the support of 90 percent of the public. Yet the measure failed 54-46 in the Senate, six votes shy of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
Giovanna Gray Lockhart ’02, who has worked as an independent consultant for ARS since 2014, was serving as a special adviser to Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., at the time.
“It was really disappointing,” Lockhart said. “We had a Democratic president and Democratic legislature and we couldn’t get it passed.”
In response to the bill’s failure, President Barack Obama gave an impassioned speech in the White House Rose Garden.
“This is a pretty shameful day for Washington,” Obama said. “The American people are trying to figure out—how can something that has 90 percent support not happen?”
One answer is that the bill was opposed by the National Rifle Association, one of the most influential lobbying organizations in Washington. Initially founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the NRA has been directly lobbying for gun rights since 1975. The organization opposes efforts to expand background checks, often arguing that they don’t prevent criminals from getting firearms through theft or illegal trade.
“This one topic holds up major legislation time and time again,” Lockhart said. “Background checks are used as a political foil.”
The NRA’s influence is considerable: the year the background check amendment was defeated, the organization took in $350 million in revenue. But as Americans struggled to come to terms with the Sandy Hook shooting, average citizens and donors began paying more attention to gun-related issues. ARS gave them somewhere to turn.
“It was really a grassroots movement,” said Megan Nashban ’09, who was the organization’s second hire. Nashban served as ARS’s development director before leaving in 2016 to work as a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Of the first $30 million raised—a big milestone for the organization—about half came from donations of less than $1,500. And while many of the donors were Democrats, there were Republicans too. And gun owners. Today, ARS boasts approximately 30,000 gun owners among its membership.