CREDO members join more than 1 million activists for gun control

The recent horrific mass shootings in Las Vegas, Nevada and Sutherland Springs, Texas are two of the deadliest in modern U.S. history. Yet, in the wake of such violence and death, politicians – mostly Republicans beholden to the National Rifle Association (NRA) – answered the tragedies with the same hollow “thoughts and prayers” lip service typical of feeble and gutless lawmakers who refuse to take real action on gun control.

Time and again, after Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, San Bernardino, Aurora, Orlando, Charleston, Navy Yard and Fort Hood – not to mention the hundreds of mass shootings and tens of thousands of gun deaths just this year – the NRA’s stranglehold has prevented Congress from passing meaningful legislation to protect Americans from the gun violence epidemic.

CREDO will never back down from the fight to prevent gun violence. Immediately after the Las Vegas shooting, we launched an emergency petition calling on Republicans to reject the NRA’s attempts to gut gun regulations and to instead pass gun control legislation, urging Republicans to “put [their] constituents before the National Rifle Association.” And immediately following the massacre in Sutherland Springs, we organized around a campaign demanding Congress pass legislation to require background checks for all gun sales.

The week following the Vegas massacre, CREDO activists, along with our allies at Daily Kos, MoveOn, CT Against Gun Violence, Avaaz and MomsRising, delivered more than 1 million petition signatures to the Kentucky and Colorado offices of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner. At both petition delivery events, activists read the names of the 58 people killed in Las Vegas as a solemn reminder of the human cost of Republicans’ failure to take legislative action to reduce gun violence.

You can watch videos of those deliveries below:

CREDO activists have also taken action urging Congress to repeal immunity for gun manufacturers and pass the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act. The petition has already amassed nearly 100,000 signatures. In addition, CREDO’s viral videos highlighting the need to act immediately on gun control have been shared more than 74,000 times and been viewed more than 7 million times.

It is long past time for Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to take immediate action to ban weapons of war, including assault weapons and large capacity magazines, which have no place in the hands of private citizens. Anything less will make it clear that congressional Republicans care more about pleasing the NRA than keeping Americans safe.