Women & Weapons - Studying American Gun Culture

An Update on Gun Policy & the Million Mom March - Pa. attorney general closes 'Florida loophole' on concealed-gun permits

 http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/state/pa-attorney-general-closes-florida-loophole-on-concealed-gun-permits-673956/

I first ran across the "Florida Loophole" during 2010 when I was researching gun laws for a book chapter on the Million Mom March. During my research the murder of a teen by a Pennsylvania man holding a Florida gun permit became an issue in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race. In Florida, gun permits are the province of the Commission on Agriculture and Consumer Services and the shenanigans involving the concealed carry permit trust fund would make great fodder for a Hiassen novel. In 2010, the Republican front runner for the seat was fully supported and financially backed by the NRA and the Koch brothers. The fact that ANY progress has been made on this issue is more of a sign of the combined cultural impact of the Giffords shootings, the Colorado movie theater shootings, and the Newtown school tragedy than a true policy shift on the part of the right.

Here is the chapter that appeared in  the anthology:  The 21st Century Motherhood Movement:
Mothers Speak Out on Why We Need to Change the World and How to Do It :

          

Introduction

            The Million Mom March began as the brainchild of Donna Dees-Thomases during the summer of 1999. Influenced by the activism of Sarah Brady and galvanized by the horror of the Granada Hills, California gun massacre, Dees Thomases conceived a mission statement for what would become a national movement to bring together mothers across the country to advocate for and with victims of gun trauma for saner gun laws (Dees-Thomases, 2004).  Estimates put the crowd that gathered to protest gun violence and advocate for stricter gun control in Washington, D.C. on Mother’s Day, May 14, 2000 somewhere between 400,000 and 700,000 (DiQuinzio, 2005).

            In 1999, other victims of gun trauma had launched another national campaign that offered a grassroots solution to the American gun epidemic. The Bell Campaign, modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), was created to prevent gun death and injury, and to support victims of gun trauma.  Organizers of the Million Mom March and the Bell Campaign would join forces in 1999 under one umbrella as the Million Mom March. After the Mother’s Day rally in May 2000, the Million Mom March merged with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (DiQuinzio, 2005).

Philosophy, Purpose, and Mission

            In the United States, gun control is a partisan issue that tends to divide along political lines. The Republican Party supports the rights of gun owners as written according to the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. Members of the Democratic Party tend to favor stringent gun control.  In 2010, political newcomers in the form of the Tea Party also became a force in the arena of gun rights discourse.

            The origins of America’s longstanding love-hate relationship with firearms are rooted deeply in this young nation’s colonial past. The right to bear arms was codified in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Revolutionary era patriots who would become the nation’s forefathers after independence had been won with guns.  An inherent part of the American national identity is based on the historical foundation of hard won independence from imperial tyranny and the perception that the firearms of patriots carried the day.

            Fast forward over two centuries later to the United States of the present day. Gun control has become a polarizing political issue. Organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) influence national elections and public policy with strategic financial infusions and well-organized media efforts to lobby for gun owners’ Second Amendment Rights while gun control advocacy groups such as the Brady Campaign organize and lobby for stricter regulation and stronger government oversight.

History

            In 1999, victims of gun trauma launched a national campaign that offered a grassroots solution to the American gun epidemic. The Bell Campaign, modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), was created to prevent gun death and injury, and to support victims of gun trauma. To support victims of gun trauma, the Campaign offered information, education, and victim advocacy to survivors of gun trauma. As chapters developed, members offered compassionate support through self-help groups and resource referral.

            In recent years, political campaigns and politicians expanded the gun control versus Second Amendment rhetoric in the wake of well-publicized shootings and proposed ballot initiatives.  Since 2006, a global movement to limit the trafficking of small arms has gained impetus in the form of the International Arms Trade Treaty via the United Nations.  Under President Bush, the United States cast the lone dissenting vote (172-1) against a measure that would implement tracing and controls to limit the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. In 2009, under President Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced a reversal of United States’ policy and issued a statement in support of the treaty.

      The treaty is opposed by American gun rights advocacy groups such as the conservative U.S. think tank the Heritage Foundation, which said that it would not restrict the access of "dictators and terrorists" to arms but would be used to reduce the ability of democracies such as Israel to defend their people (“U.S. reverses stance on treaty to regulate arms trade,” 2009). The National Rifle Association, one of the most influential gun rights advocacy organizations and a powerful lobbying group in its own right, has also opposed the treaty. While the treaty addresses the illicit global trade of small arms, it does not limit the ability of sovereign nations to regulate gun ownership within its borders – as opponents seem to fear.

            In Pennsylvania, gun control briefly dominated the public discourse in the 2010 governor’s race after a shooting in Philadelphia made national headlines. The shooter in the September 12, 2010 murder held a Florida gun permit that had been obtained via an Internet application – an application procedure that would be identified as the “Florida Loophole” by gun control advocates.

          In Florida, where gun permitting is administered by the Commission on Agriculture and Consumer Services, the gun rights issue was not addressed by either candidate for that seat – even though crimes committed with Florida gun permits were making headlines in Pennsylvania and other states.  However, the Republican candidate and ultimate victor in the race, Congressman Adam Putnam, had been endorsed by and received a sizable campaign contribution from the NRA.  Speaking as the current executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida and past president of the NRA, Florida resident Marion Hammer stated, “Adam’s solid pro-sportsmen, pro-Second Amendment, pro-freedom record has earned him our endorsement and our gratitude. No other candidate in this race has the background of dedicated legislative service that he has demonstrated to the cause of freedom, the Second Amendment and protection of constitutional rights” (“NRA and Unified Sportsmen of Florida Back Adam Putnam,” 2010).  Putnam’s stated stance assured Floridians he would be a staunch advocate on behalf of gun owners, “I have always fought to protect the Second Amendment, the rights for self-defense and have sponsored anti-crime legislation throughout my career.  As commissioner, one of the most important responsibilities is protecting Floridians' right to carry, and I will ensure that eligible citizens who seek a concealed weapons license receive the most efficient service possible” (“NRA and Unified Sportsmen of Florida Back Adam Putnam,” 2010).  Elected on the same ticket in 2010, Florida governor Rick Scott also assured gun owners he would advocate for their interests, “As a member of the NRA and a hunter, I’m a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. I will protect our fundamental right to keep and bear arms” (“Our Second Amendment Rights, 2010).

            While Florida’s governor and the Commissioner of Agriculture enjoy the support of the NRA and the hunters, a number of Florida’s mayors have joined a national coalition for gun control, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The policy gap between the stance adopted by local leaders and the executive branch of the state is emblematic of the American cultural and political divide on the gun issue. The Mayors’ coalition, like the Brady Campaign and the Million Mom March, advocates for responsible gun ownership via government regulation,

            “As mayors, our highest responsibility is to enforce the law and to protect the     people we serve. One of the most difficult challenges we face in meeting this          responsibility is preventing criminals from illegally obtaining guns and using             them. The issue of illegal guns is not conservative or liberal; it is an issue of law   and order -- and life or death. We support the Second Amendment and the rights of citizens to own guns. We recognize that the vast majority of gun dealers and       gun owners carefully follow the law. “

                                                                        (“About the Coalition,” 2009).

            In January 2011, gun control and gun rights would dominate the public discourse and once again make headlines after the Tucson, Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords during a public appearance at a Safeway grocery store that left six dead and injured 18 others.

             The impetus for what would eventually become the Million Mom March began in 1994, on the streets of New York City, when Mary Leigh Blek’s son Matthew, a nineteen-year-old college freshman was murdered on a street in Manhattan (Kelly 216).  Mary Leigh Blek, a continent away in California, was a former nurse and stay-at-home wife prior to her son’s death. Her son’s death motivated her to work for sound public gun policy while she learned to adjust to life without Matthew.

            She would later learn that the fifteen year old who killed her son Matt got the gun via a street purchase. It was determined that the gun had been first purchased in a Southern state with more lenient gun laws and then sold illegally out of a car trunk in a New York City neighborhood. She wanted people to know, she said, “If it happened to me, it could happen to you” (Blek, 2010, personal communication).

            What she said next, though, and what she has done in the sixteen years since her son’s murder, however, has been remarkable.

            Mary Leigh explained her motivation to turn her personal tragedy into a national movement to advocate on behalf of victims of gun violence, “The idea – the death of your child – is so sudden, so senseless, you want to stand on rooftops and shout so somebody else’s child gets to live.”

            Blek, supporting what she terms “common-sense gun laws”, rather than a total gun ban, began to organize locally with other parents who had lost children to gun violence (Kelly 216).  Her organization, modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), would eventually grow into the Bell Campaign, as an organization devoted to preventing gun death and injury, and to supporting victims of gun trauma (Bell Campaign, Kelly 216).  Early group activities included aiding victims after the Columbine shootings in Colorado. The group expanded its efforts nationwide in 1999 with the aid of a $4.3 million grant from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.       

            She first organized the Bell Campaign with the intent of organizing mothers against gun violence. The organization would later join forces with Donna Dees-Thomases’ Million Mom March group – Thomases’ own response to the mass shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, California.

            Later, the organizations would merge with the Brady Campaign. Today, Blek’s ongoing advocacy goals and work include bringing accountability into gun ownership and having a background check for all guns.

Activities of the Organization

            One of the most visible activities of the organization was the march organized in 2000 by Donna Dees Thomases.  Thomases founded the Million Mom March, and would eventually collaborate and combine efforts with Blek, to bring people to Washington DC as a highly visible political event with the idea that concurrent marches would be held in cities across the nation.  After Blek agreed to the union, the organization began to grow into a movement (Kelly 216) that would later join forces with the Brady Campaign.

            In 2004, the Million Mom March staged the “Halt the Assault Tour” to promote the renewal of the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons (DiQuinzio, 2005).  While the Million Mom March lost that battle when Congress failed to renew the ban in the fall of 2004, the war against gun violence would continue with the work of grassroots chapters and the national advocacy efforts under the auspices of the Brady Campaign.

            In 2010, the Million Mom March organized a national petition campaign against Starbucks in response to a corporate policy that would allow gun rights advocates to meet while exercising rights to the open-carry of firearms in the coffee houses. The petition stated the following:

            Dear Starbucks,
            “I demand that Starbucks stand up for the safety of your customers and bar guns           in your establishments. Guns don't belong in restaurants and coffee shops where        children and families gather. It puts families and law enforcement at risk. Reverse    your corporate decision”

                                                            (Brady Campaign, 2010).

Efforts to protest Starbucks’ corporate support of open-carry laws included demonstrations by Million Mom March chapter members at Starbucks’ locations in their local communities.

            The organization also celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the first Million Mom March at the Brady’s Center Gala at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in May 2010.

Following the Roadmap Created by Mothers Against Drunk Driving

            The mothers who coalesced to form what became the Million Mom March used a grassroots strategy modeled after Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  Mothers Against Drunk Driving is an organization considered to be one of the greatest grassroots organizing successes in the United States and was also started by a grieving mother (MADD, 2005).  In May 1980, Candy Lightner’s thirteen year old daughter Cari was struck and killed in a hit and run accident by a drunk driver while she was walking to a church carnival. In the aftermath of Cari’s death, Candy Lightner and her friends would learn that there were no laws to address drunk driving in California and few legal avenues for victims to pursue in the court systems.  MADD’s first office was located in Cari Lightner’s old bedroom (MADD, 2005).  

            As would happen twenty years later with the Bell Campaign and the Million Mom March, a movement that began on one side of the nation developed a face and a presence on the other side of the country when Cindy Lamb, the mother of Laura, a 5 month old drunk driving victim, the nation’s youngest paraplegic, started a MADD chapter in Maryland (MADD, 2005).  In October 1980, Candy Lightner and Cindy Lamb became the national faces for Mothers Against Drunk Driving after speaking together at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

            By 1982, MADD had grown to 100 chapters nationwide. That same year, with Executive Order 12358, President Ronald Reagan created the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving and charged it to undertake the following mandates: (a) heighten public awareness of the seriousness of the drunk driving problem; (b) persuade States and communities to attack the drunk driving problem in a more organized and systematic manner, including plans to eliminate bottlenecks in the arrest, trial and sentencing process that impair the effectiveness of many drunk driving laws; (c) encourage State and local officials and organizations to accept and use the latest techniques and methods to solve the problem; and (d) generate public support for increased enforcement of State and local drunk driving laws.  Later that year, Congress passed a federal bill awarding highway funds to states with anti-drunk driving efforts. MADD’s advocacy efforts would ultimately result in passage of the Uniform Drinking Age Act in 1984 – legislation that would deny highway funds to states that did not raise the drinking age to 21.

            Since 1984, economists, policy analysts, and the American Medical Association have expressed differing opinions on the effectiveness of the series of laws that became known as MLDA21s (American Medical Association, 2010; Miron and Titelbaum, 2009; National Highway Traffic Safety Association, 1989). However, regardless of differing viewpoints about the association between the reducing teen alcohol consumption and reductions in traffic fatalities, the influence of MADD as an advocacy organization that changed how an entire nation’s legal system and concomitantly, its culture, addresses the issue of drunk driving, is undeniable.

Challenges: The Growth and Evolution of the Million Mom March

            Like Mothers Against Drunk Driving two decades earlier, the organization that first began as the Bell Campaign as a way to address grief and to advocate for the victims of gun violence grew state by state and chapter by chapter. After the Million Mom March in the United States’ capital with concurrent marches around the country, the organizers utilized early forms of social networking via the Internet and late night conference calls that fit into the busy schedules for working and stay-at-home mothers around the nation.

Challenges

            President Clinton, in the wake of the 1994 midterm elections, may have best summed up the challenges faced by the Million Mom March when he stated, “The NRA is the reason the Republicans control the house” (Homsher, 2001). While the pendulum of public opinion swings from election to election and the rhetoric varies annually and state by state with each legislative session, the message of gun control advocates has remained constant.  For the women who continue to organize and advocate under the auspices of the Million Mom March, gun control continues to be “about reinforcing a norm of responsible gun ownership and use” (Jacobs, 2002).  The NRA, however, bills itself as, “as America's foremost defender of Second Amendment rights” (“A Brief History of the NRA, 2011).   The organization, with nearly four million members, views attempts at government regulation as an encroachment upon Second Amendment Rights and has a successful track record of effectively mobilizing members on the state and national level.

Future Goals

      Between 2007 and 2010, the United State Supreme Court heard cases related to gun rights and the Second Amendment for the first time since 1939. Mary Leigh Blek (2010) believes, along with Criminologist and Professor James Alan Fox, that the Supreme Court's recent ruling on gun control is helpful and that with the Court's "recognition that various government bodies maintain the authority to regulate gun ownership and licensing" that reasonable public policy related to gun control is within reach (personal communication). 

            In United States v. Miller, the 1939 decision “suggested that the right should be understood in connection with service in a militia” (“Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Gun Control Case, 2007).  In 2007, a case related to the Washington, D.C. handgun ban appeared before the Court and the ban was struck down. Subsequently, the McDonald v. Chicago ruling nullified “many city and state bans on handguns, but left the door open for carefully worded legislation that restricts gun ownership” by clarifying Second Amendment rights related to self defense for non-militia members (“Supreme Court Rules on gun control, Second Amendment,” 2010).

            The organization’s continuing goals closely align with Professor Fox’s stance. According to Blek, the following measures represent reasonable public policy goals that the Supreme Court's majority might deem as legitimate. Most importantly, she stated, these policies would help save precious lives by preventing guns from falling into dangerous hands. In one year in the United States, 30,896 people died from gun violence and 78,622 people survived gun injuries (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). Blek (2010) asked, “What are we waiting for?”
The future goals of the Million Mom March as outlined by President Emeritus Mary Leigh Blek:

• Repeal of federal restrictions on the wide-ranging use of ATF trace data for identifying patterns of illegal gun trafficking.
• Control of bulk sales of firearms.
• Require licensed firearms dealers to maintain up-to-date records and to report all stolen or lost inventory.
• Require background checks on all gun purchases and for registration of all guns and transfers of ownership.

Another current initiative of the Million Mom March, in partnership with the Brady Campaign, is advocacy for childproof guns:

POSITION: The Brady Campaign supports making all newly manufactured or imported handguns “childproof.”  Childproof handguns can be designed so they can be fired only by their owner or someone authorized by the owner.

                                               

                        (“Federal Gun Laws: Childproof Handguns”, Brady Campaign, 2010)

According to the Brady Campaign, childproof handguns would use existing technology to increase gun safety:

            Gun manufacturers can make handguns childproof by integrating a mechanical or            biometric lock into the handgun’s design. An internal mechanical lock works like          the lock on a briefcase.  The owner punches in a code and the lock releases,          allowing the owner to open the briefcase.  Biometric locks release when the       fingerprint or hand-grip of the owner/authorized individual is read by the lock’s       scanner. Biometric locks are more secure than mechanical locks.

                                                            (“Childproof Handguns”, Brady Campaign, 2010).

In the wake of the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona that injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and left six dead, including a nine year old girl, gun control proponents have called for tighter restrictions on access to guns, including additional screening for mental health issues that might render a person unfit for safe gun ownership.

The Motherhood Movement and The Million Mom March:

The Importance of the Organization

            The first Million Mom March was conceptualized as a campaign that would appeal to mothers and used iconic imagery associated with motherhood in American culture – linking, for example, the association between “mothers and apple pie” ( Sharpe, 2001).  The Bell Campaign was first conceptualized by a grieving mother who sought to make some sense out of the senseless – in the case of Mary Leigh Blek, the shooting death of her son Matt in 1994.  The model for her organization was based on another grassroots’ mother-focused organization, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  The Million Mom March was launched on the national stage at a major rally on Mother’s Day 2000 in Washington, D.C.

            Feminism and motherhood have long had a tumultuous, controversial relationship (Kinser, 2010).  To be a feminist or to embrace feminism is to think in terms of women as advocates and as actors with a certain amount of agency. The concept of motherhood is emotion-laden and fraught with social expectations based on cultural frameworks (DiQuinzio, 2005).  Women such as Mary Leigh Blek, Donna Dees Thomases, and Sarah Brady all used their status as mothers as the basis for their civic participation and the foundation for their activism. The inherent idea on which the main premise of the Million Mom March is founded is that these are mothers organizing against gun violence.            DiQuinzio asserts that “women’s civic engagement is more likely to be accepted when it is based on motherhood, since motherhood has long been seen as women’s distinctive and most appropriate role” (227). However, as noted by Kinzer, “feminists have also channeled a great of energy into critiquing motherhood as a source of women’s oppression, isolation in the home, and exclusion from paid work and career opportunities” (1).

            The role of the Million Mom March in the Motherhood Movement is multi-faceted. As an organization that organized around and built upon the lessons learned from other successful foremothers in grassroots organizing, the women of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the mothers who coalesced into the group that would celebrate its 10^th anniversary in May 2010 as the Million Mom March have further cemented the power of mother-based advocacy efforts.  As co-founder Mary Leigh Blek observed, the Million Mom March provided a blueprint for grassroots organizing on the working mother’s schedule. Conference calls were scheduled at night to accommodate the hectic calendars of mothers with children. Local Million Mom March chapters embraced the Internet and numerous web-based social and new media tools such as Facebook to expand their grassroots’ organizing efforts.

            Critics of the Million Mom March have argued that the organization and others like it have helped to create notions of “essential motherhood” and that their existence has functionally served to characterize agency and activism that is motherhood-based as further legitimating the motherhood identity or status as “the basis for women’s moral authority” (DiQuinzio 236).  Proponents of empowered motherhood advocate for a broader conceptualization of the mothering experience that does not give extra weight to the voices those women who mother in accordance with traditional, patriarchal norms (Kinser, 2010).

Conclusion
            The Million Mom March helped to ring in the new century in May 2000 with a massive demonstration orchestrated by an estimated 750,000 mothers in Washington, D.C.   Ten years after its inception, the Million Mom March organization continues to be a national voice advocating for sane gun control laws in the United States. The role of the Million Mom March in the 21^st century Motherhood Movement has been to serve as a model for grassroots organizing that has stood the test of time while adapting to and embracing evolving technologies in order to facilitate more effective advocacy.

Website

The Million Mom March merged with The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in October 2001: http://www.bradycampaign.org/

Works Cited

 

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