Facing a pro-gun government, anti-gun movement feels defiant
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, a favourite of the National Rifle Association, has custody of the Oval Office. The Republican-controlled Congress already has ditched one Obama-era rule to tighten access to guns. And an emboldened NRA has much more ambitious plans afoot for easing state and national gun laws as its annual convention unfolds this weekend in Atlanta.
But gun control advocates do not want your pity, thank you very much.
The groups that stand in opposition to looser gun laws say they are ready to rumble, as the NRA enjoys a post-election payoff moment Friday when Trump becomes the first president to appear at its convention since Ronald Reagan in 1983.
“We have become the David to the NRA’s Goliath,” says Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America following the 2012 shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut. The group is now part of Everytown for Gun Safety, which is backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and is the largest organization fighting gun violence in the U.S.