Gun control: Three ways supporters are carrying on the fight
While gun control proponents may have conceded defeat in the Senate, they insist the war isn’t over. President Obama himself said he saw the defeat as just Round 1.
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Now, pro-gun-control groups are taking a page from the NRA’s playbook, taking to the airwaves in an attempt to paint those who voted against background checks as soft on crime.
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Leading the charge are two groups: Obama’s own campaign group, Organizing for Action, which has said it will organize campaigns against both Democrats and Republicans who opposed the background-check bill; and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the group cofounded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which bankrolled many gun-control campaigns ahead of the Senate vote.
“Today and for the foreseeable future, mayors and supporters and survivors and some pretty outraged citizens will be letting senators know they’re paying attention,” Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told The New York Times. “And their memories are long.”
Among the first ads to hit the Twitter universe: a “wanted" poster by Mr. Glaze’s group featuring the four Democrats who voted against background checks – Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Max Baucus of Montana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Mark Begich of Alaska – with the title, “The Soft on Crime Caucus.”
States: As the Decoder reported Thursday, the next front in the gun-control battle appears to be at the state level. There, authorities are forging ahead with gun-control bills even as federal legislation hits a wall.
Some 11 states are considering or have already passed tougher gun laws – New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
Moving the fight to the state level forces groups like the NRA “to fight back in multiple jurisdictions, spreading out its resources rather than concentrating them in Washington,” the LA Times reports. “For another, it allows states, cities and counties to create restrictions that are tailored to their populations and politics.”
The fight may go on, but for now, it appears “Round 2” will be a far less ambitious effort than Round 1.
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