The rise of candidates centering gun violence is a result of the growing prevention movement across the US, which has become something of 👉a pipeline for new candidates running for office.
#Maxwell #Frost, the nation’s first gen Z US representative, started off as a volunteer before becoming organizing director for
"March for Our Lives",
the gun-safety group founded by survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in #Parkland, Florida.
Georgia representative #Lucy #McBath, whose son Jordan Davis was shot and killed in 2012,
and Virginia governor-elect #Abigail #Spanberger were both volunteers with the gun-safety group
"Moms Demand Action" before they ran for office.
And #Cameron #Kasky, a survivor of the Parkland shooting who helped to organize the March for Our Lives student protests, recently announced his campaign to represent Manhattan, New York, in Congress.
“I see myself as a small part of a bigger movement. It’s the reason I got into politics,” Frost said.
“I was 15 when #Sandy #Hook happened and that’s what pushed me to get involved in organizing and it’s remained a big piece of my organizing.”
Today, calling out gun-rights lobbyists and groups like the National Rifle Association ( #NRA ) is common among Democrats vying for political office.
But less than 15 years ago, many moderate Democrats held A ratings from the NRA and the subject of regulating guns was a third rail that could spell an end to political aspirations,
said #Shannon #Watts, a violence-prevention activist and founder of Moms Demand Action.
“It was gradual and not linear,”
she said of the change that’s happened.
“We saw that our volunteers were running for office and thought it was common sense that someone who was learning how to shape legislation would want to take the next step to make the legislation as an elected official.”
Watts marks the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, in which a gunman
killed 20 children and six adults,
and the subsequent failure of Congress to pass gun-safety policies, as a watershed moment that pushed formerly gun-friendly Democrats like former West Virginia senator #JoeManchin, Minnesota governor #Tim #Walz and former Arizona representative #Ann #Kirkpatrick to risk their A rating from the NRA to call for restrictions on gun-#magazine #capacities and #assault #weapons.
⭐️Now, having an F rating from the group is a point of pride.
“After Parkland, zero Democratic members of Congress had an A rating and were proud about it.
That’s a seismic shift,”
Watts added.
“I think it’s proof positive that playing the long game works.
Lucy [McBath] ran for a seat held by Republicans and she ran on the issue of gun safety.
It shattered a lot of misperceptions and fears about being gun safety-forward.
The issue of gun violence has also activated newcomers to politics.
#Shaundelle #Brooks’s son, Akilah Dasilva, was one of four people killed in a mass shooting at a #Nashville Waffle House in 2018.
Five years later, in 2023, another son, who survived the Waffle House shooting, was shot and injured while leaving a Nashville music venue.
After her son’s death, Brooks said she regularly would go to the statehouse to advocate for gun laws that she feels could have prevented the death of her son and so many others.
After years of her pleas falling on unreceptive ears, she decided to run for office.
“There was a time where people were scared to even mention it while they were running.
And I remember not voting for certain people because of that.
So I am grateful that people are standing up, speaking out and being brave about it,” Brooks said.
“Coming up here for seven years and having them just ignoring me,
testifying and then being told that if my son had a gun that would have saved his life,
showed me that I needed to do more than what I was doing.”
The personal experiences of loss unite people like Brooks and Pearson with the scores of Americans who are part of what gun-violence victims and survivors describe as a club that no one wants to be a part of.
“When people see you’re personally impacted,
they feel that you’re more credible to talk about this kind of stuff.
They know it’s not a political thing for us,” she said
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/02/gun-safety-law-us-legislation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
