As part of a tougher, more determined movement intent on tightening gun restrictions, venture capitalist Kenneth Lerer launched a new initiative Wednesday that will zero in on the National Rifle Association's extremist agenda. Included is a website,
StoptheNRA, jam-packed with videos, news and action links about guns, as well as a place to sign up and participate. Greg Sargent
writes:
“The point of StopTheNRA is to post and create viral content and put it all in one place to bring ongoing attention to the outrageous positions of the NRA and to continue to bring pressure on the issues,” Lerer tells me.
Lerer, you may recall, is one of several top donors who has vowed to withhold contributions from Democrats who vote against gun control. Lerer says his effort will include targeted contributions to Dems who are good on gun issues and organizing among other top Dem donors to encourage them to withhold from Dems who toe the NRA line.
The launching of Lerer's group is another ramping up of a gun-reform movement that was nearly moribund until the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting last July and the December slayings in Connecticut. Alex MacGillis at
The New Republic recently wrote
This Is How the NRA Ends—A bigger, richer, meaner gun-control movement has arrived detailing the change in strategy, ferocity and funding of the post Newtown gun-reform efforts.
The movement includes New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Americans for Responsible Solutions, the reform group founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly. They and others, including Vice President Joe Biden, are showing they are in this for the long haul.
Although the federal fight for new legislation has ended in defeat for the time being, these new groups, and less well-known local organizations, can now point to victories in some states, whether or not they were directly involved in the campaigns that led to successes.
In the case of Nevada, Bloomberg's operation—which is now providing gun-reform resources to state capitals, both funding and organizing savvy—was directly involved in getting the legislature to pass a bill to extend background checks to all private sales and other transfers of guns. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval is certain to veto it. But passage in the legislature reflects a new attitude among Democrats in some Western states who in the past have avoided support of new gun laws for fear they will be ousted on election day.
In Colorado, too, another state with a history of widespread gun ownership and gun rights advocacy, Democratic legislators braved the intimidation and approved an expansion of background checks, a prospective owner's fee for the checks and a ban on ammunition magazines of more than 15 rounds.
New York, Maryland and Connecticut have also passed fresh legislation, including new or expanded "assault weapon" bans, limits on magazines, and licensing and fingerprinting for gun purchases.
Come 2014, we'll see the impact, if any, of these new laws on elections. Not a year ago, they wouldn't have passed, in part because many Democratic legislators who quietly favored them would have been too fearful of voting "aye" because of the cudgeling the NRA and other gun advocacy groups would give them at polls. The gun-reform movement, with deeper pockets than ever, may well be able to shield some Democrats from voter backlash. Or it may not. But one thing is clear: The NRA has new foes that seek to be more formidable than the gun manufacturers' lobby has seen over the past 30 years.