2/18/18, "In Florida aftermath, US students say 'Never Again'," BBC,
"They have announced the March for Our Lives to take place on 24 March, in conjunction with the Everytown for Gun Safety, calling for the prioritisation of children's lives in the gun control debate."...
...............
6/20/2016, "Inside the Bloomberg-backed gun-control group’s effort to defeat the NRA," Washington Post, Catherine Ho
"Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s highest-profile gun-control group, [is] largely bankrolled by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg."...
.................
Added: "March for Our Lives" student founder, Cameron Kasky, recently appeared on CNN. Kasky is on record spewing violent and hateful rhetoric from his Facebook pages, posted below. (He recently scrubbed these pages from his site):
2/22/18, "Schoolboy Cameron Kasky," tcth, sundance
"As awkward as it is to see a boy utilized as a political tool, note the nuance, comfort, preparation and defensive narrative positioning of the [CNN] moderator, Jake Tapper. The aggregate event was a very carefully orchestrated pantomime. The boy, Cameron Kasky, is nothing more than a puppet on a string playing a role....
The U.S. media apparatus...consistently indoctrinate and manipulate children. Indeed, in the history of Fabian political advancement children have always been a focus point for advancing their authoritarian control objectives....
Prior to appearing on CNN schoolboy Cameron Kasky scrubbed his Facebook page. However, the internet is forever.
I can’t even fathom the ideological mentality and immaturity of the boy’s parents. This is exactly what setting up a kid for a life of misery and shallowness looks like."...images above from tcth
......................
Added: Bloomberg group, "Everytown for Gun Safety:"
6/20/2016, "Inside the Bloomberg-backed gun-control group’s effort to defeat the NRA," Washington Post, Catherine Ho
"Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation’s highest-profile gun-control group, [is] largely bankrolled by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg....
The [Everytown] Survivor Network is just one component of Everytown’s aggressive crusade to change the gun-control debate in the United States....Everytown is seeking to disrupt the debate with a richly funded, rapid-action and unconventional lobbying campaign that is starting to reap some results at the state level, though federal action is stalled....
Everytown views itself as a counterweight to the powerful National Rifle Association, which has historically dominated the gun-control debate.
“The gun lobby has had its way in state legislatures for decades, had its way in Congress for decades,” said Everytown Executive Director John Feinblatt, a former aide to Bloomberg in the mayor’s office. “They wanted to convince the American public of their invincibility, to convince the American public that what America stood for was guns anywhere, held by anyone, at any time. There has been no friction in many ways.”
Feinblatt’s group is seeking to provide that friction. Since its launch in April 2014, Everytown has grown from about a dozen employees to 130.
Its spending has also exploded. Headquartered in midtown Manhattan, the group spent $37 million in 2014, the most recent year for which there are publicly available tax filings. That included $4.6 million on political campaign activities; $3.5 million on advertising and promotion; $2 million on travel; $1.7 million on lobbying; and $580,000 on polling. When the group launched, Bloomberg pledged $50 million to support the effort.
By comparison, the NRA in 2014 spent $345 million, including $57 million on advertising, $5.8 million on political campaign activities and $1 million on lobbying, according to the group’s tax filings. The NRA says a more comparable figure to Everytown’s $37 million, though, is the $20 million the NRA’s lobbying arm spent in 2014.
Everytown’s tactics do not sit well with everyone. The NRA calls the group’s use of survivors exploitative and says it seeks to restrict Second Amendment rights to further the political agenda of “an anti-gun billionaire.”
“They use tragedy and exploit victims to push their policy agenda because they can’t win the argument based on facts,” said Jennifer Baker, director of public affairs for the NRA’s lobbying arm. “The tragedies Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control group exploit to push their agenda would not have been prevented by the gun-control policies they want to enact.”
Baker countered Everytown’s claim that they are a counterweight to the NRA, citing the NRA’s larger grass-roots network.
“They have a lot of financial resources — that’s why their voice is being heard,” Baker said. “But they will never be able to replicate what the NRA does, because the NRA represents 5 million dues-paying members across the country who believe in the Second Amendment. They have Michael Bloomberg’s checkbook.”
Everytown blends the elements of a national political campaign with traditional shoe-leather lobbying, celebrity endorsements, a volunteer network, and digital outreach. The group’s leaders say they get money from about 100,000 donors, many of whom give in $10 or $25 increments.
Most unique to Everytown is the way it recruits and leverages survivors personally affected by gun violence, both among its paid staff and in its massive volunteer network.
That is mainly through its Survivors Network, which is growing.
Last year, the group launched a fellowship program — which has since nearly doubled from 35 to 61 fellows — to train survivors of shootings in public speaking, testifying before lawmakers and doing interviews with the media. McNeil, the shooting survivor in Mobile, completed the fellowship this spring.
A number of Everytown’s paid staffers have been personally touched by gun violence, viewing their professional purpose as inextricably intertwined with those experiences.
Colin Goddard, a senior policy advocate in Everytown’s Washington office, was shot four times during the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. The mother of Ashley Cech, a program associate for the Survivor Network, was a librarian during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting [enacted with a gun that belonged to the shooter's mother-whom he shot dead before killing the school children] who barricaded a door to keep the shooter out.
Goddard and Cech essentially function as grass-roots lobbyists, knocking on doors to try to persuade voters to support stricter gun laws or vote for supportive candidates. Both were part of the group’s 2014 canvassing effort in Oregon that helped elect two state senators who back universal background checks.
Perhaps more than anyone, Goddard represents the passion and purpose — and, at times, frustration and disenchantment — of being on the front lines of the gun-control movement. Working as an advocate has been therapeutic but not always easy.
“This work is difficult,” Goddard said. “You feel like you make a lot of progress, but then you hear of a shooting and feel like you’re back at square one. . . . I don’t want to do this forever.”
Recruiting survivors to the cause is a delicate dance that, tragically, is often spurred by mass shootings.
To date, Everytown’s most successful growth campaign came in 2014, immediately following the shooting in Isla Vista, where a man killed six people, including 20-year-old Christopher Michaels-Martinez. In the days after, Michaels-Martinez’s father, Richard Martinez, made an emotional plea to the public.
“Today, I’m going to ask every person I can find to send a postcard to every politician they can think of with three words on it: ‘Not one more,’ ” he said in an interview with The Washington Post after the shooting. “People are looking for something to do. I’m asking people to stand up for something. Enough is enough.
Feinblatt was watching Martinez speak and thought out loud: “Can’t we do that? Can we make a tool that you can put your name on and it spits out your address?”
So they did — Everytown’s digital team created an online postcard people could fill in their name on and send to lawmakers. They ended up delivering 1.2 million signed postcards to the White House, Congress and governors’ offices and drew 300,000 new people to join Everytown.
Focused on the states, with an eye on Washington
Everytown’s primary legislative goal is to enact more comprehensive background checks in the states, particularly those where sales — at gun shows, over the Internet, or private ones — can skirt them.
The group runs legislative campaigns in about 30 states at any given time, which include lobbying in state capitols and pushing to elect candidates whose positions echo its own. The effort is gaining traction, but the wins are incremental, labor-intensive and costly.
Since Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., states have collectively enacted 242 new firearms laws. About 40 percent of them strengthen gun laws, and 36 percent weaken them; the remaining have had minimal impact, according a 2015 analysis by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The group adopted its state-based strategy from the marriage equality movement. And, borrowing a strategy from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Everytown has recruited hundreds of volunteer mothers across the country, called “Moms Demand Action,” to act as their surrogates to testify before local legislators, hold events and rally support.
Everytown has successfully lobbied for the passage of stricter gun laws in five states over the past three years — Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, New York and Delaware — and earlier this year led efforts in Maine and Nevada to get initiatives on the ballot in November. The NRA is fighting both.
But the other side claims just as many victories. The NRA takes particular pride in the outcome of November’s Virginia state Senate race.
Everytown invested $2.3 million in trying to defeat two NRA-backed Republicans and gain a Democratic majority in the state Senate. They defeated one, but Republicans held on to the majority. West Virginia this year enacted legislation that allows people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, despite Everytown’s staunch lobbying against the policy.
Shaping popular culture
Everytown’s campaign also goes well beyond the legislative realm — the group wants to shape the debate in popular culture. It is partnering with celebrities and pushing major retailers such as Chipotle and Target — with some success — to prohibit customers from bringing guns into their stores.
Last Christmas, Everytown partnered with the NBA to produce television commercials featuring Stephen Curry and Chris Paul speaking out against gun violence.
In January, Feinblatt flew to the Sundance Film Festival to help promote three documentaries about gun safety. The following week, the group hosted a show at Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan, headlined by “Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch and featuring Fred Armisen.
And in February, it worked with actor Julianne Moore to launch the Everytown Creative Council, a group of 120 actors, directors, comedians and other celebrities."...
..............................
Added:
On 1/18/2013 Bloomberg was in Washington, DC for a Mayors conference. It was a logical time to ask about the privilege of armed guards he enjoys but would deny others:
Above, 1/18/2013: At :20: Mattera asks Bloomberg: "In the spirit of gun control, will you disarm your entire security team?"
Bloomberg: "Uh, we'll get right back to you." Mattera: "You'll get back to me?...And you're an advocate for gun control?"...
Above, 1/18/2013: At :30, Bloomberg body guard blocks Mattera from speaking to Bloomberg any further.
............
No comments:
Post a Comment