The Parkland students who founded the March For Our Lives organization have partnered with other groups, including the National Organization For Change and the Road to Change, to prepare their "National March On The NRA" event, which is scheduled to take place in front of the NRA's headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia on August 4.
The group tweeted out the news that they received permission from the city of Fairfax to hold their rally:
We got the approval we are shutting down the street in front of the @NRA 11250 Waples Mill Rd, Fairfax, VA 22030; This has never been done before! Thank you Fairfax County and City Police! pic.twitter.com/0I0sEm0tJb
— National Org. For Change (@MarchOnNRA) July 26, 2018
The group listed their demands on their website, which include:
Universal, comprehensive background check
Proposals for universal background checks would require almost all firearms transactions in the United States to be recorded and go through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), closing what is sometimes called the private sale loophole.Only six states (California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island) require universal background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows, including sales by unlicensed dealers. Three more states (Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania) require background checks on all handgun sales made at gun shows.
Bringing the ATF into the 21st CenturyBringing the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) into the 21st century with a digitized, searchable database.
This demand makes zero sense. Anytime someone goes to purchase a firearm, they fill out a 4473 form with all of their personal information. That information is then entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) on a federal firearms licensee's computer. How much more 21st Century can you get?
Funds for the Center for Disease Control to research the gun violence epidemic in America
After 23 deadly shooting, the debate always, it seems, breaks down like this: One side argues for gun control, and the other argues there is no research proving those measures work. There is, in fact, little research into gun violence at all—especially compared to other causes of death in the United States.The modern origins of the impasse can be traced to 1996, when Congress passed an amendment to a spending bill that forbade the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using money to “advocate or promote gun control.”
The National Rifle Association had pushed for the amendment, after public-health researchers produced a spate of studies suggesting that, for example, having a gun in the house increased risk of homicide and suicide.
It deemed the research politically motivated. Gun-rights advocates zeroed in on statements like that of Mark Rosenberg, then the director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. In response to the early ’90s crime wave, Rosenberg had said in 1994, “We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes ... It used to be that smoking was a glamour symbol—cool, sexy, macho. Now it is dirty, deadly—and banned.” -CNN
The reason gun rights activists are against the CDC having anything to do with guns has everything to do with who is conducting the research. Look at those who have conducted research in the past. They're considered "experts" in their field. Translation: they're expert gun control advocates.
Demand Congress to repeal the "Dickey Amendment"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not been able to do any research on gun violence in America since the Dickey Amendment was inserted into the federal spending bill in 1996. The amendment states that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” In the same spending bill Congress moved the $2.6 million from the CDC's budget that was used to study gun violence into other areas.While the Dickey Amendment does not completely prohibit gun violence research, its removal of all CDC funding has created a strong deterrent against researching gun violence at all. Beyond the lack of funding, prospective researchers have faced literal death threats while pursuing research into gun violence.
Our representatives in Congress refuse to have any real debates about gun use in America because they state that there is just not enough research into the matter.
The only way to fix this problem is to have Congress repeal the Dickey Amendment and to put funding back into the research of firearms and gun related deaths. Only then will we have enough research to figure out why mass shootings, and the deadly use of firearms in general, is so common in America.
There's the admission Second Amendment supporters have been talking about all along. "Gun violence prevention research" is really translation for "advocating or promoting gun control."
High-capacity magazine ban
A high-capacity magazine ban is a law which bans or otherwise restricts high-capacity magazines, detachable firearm magazines that can hold more than a certain number of rounds of ammunition.
This would limit the number of rounds a mass shooter could fire uninterrupted, meaning they’d have to reload more often, and not be able to shoot as many people in between.
More reloading would result in a higher probability of a malfunction or mistake, giving law enforcement more time to respond and bystanders more opportunity to flee or fight back.
A high-capacity magazine ban makes very little difference when it comes to mass shootings. Look at all of the recent mass shootings. The shooter stocks up on handfuls of magazines. They preload them with ammo so all they have to do is pop them into the gun.
Limiting the number of rounds a person can carry in their firearm can mean the difference between life and death for those who carry for self-defense.
Assault weapons ban
Ordinary civilians will not be able to walk into gun stores and walk out with assault weapons. Further, assault weapons need to be limited in number and overall existence.
Assault Weapon Definition
An assault weapon shall be defined as any weapon of a caliber higher than .30 caliber or more and any rifle, long gun, or short-barrelled rifle that fires in semi-automatic and takes self-loading magazines. This excludes handguns and revolvers, which have their own distinction in this bill. Here is a list of notable examples:
AR-15, M16, M4 and all variants of said weapons
AK-47, AK-74, AKs74u, AKM, AN-94, and all similar variants
Uzi Submachine gun
MAC-10 Submachine gun and MAC-11 Submachine gun
Tec-9 semi-auto pistol
Benelli M4 autoloading shotgun
Saiga 12 autoloading shotgun
SPAS-12 autoloading shotgun
Thompson Submachine gun "Tommy Gun"
SKS Battle Rifle
M-14 Rifle
FN FAL Rifle
SCAR-L Rifle
Adaptive Combat Rifle
MP-40 Submachine gun
STG-44 Rifle
KRISS Vector Rifle
MP5, MP5SD, MP5K, UMP-45, and all other variants
Steyr TMP Machine pistol
HK G36c, G36 and all other rifles
HK PSG1 Sniper Rifle
Cheytac M200 Intervention Sniper Rifle
Barrett M82, M107 and other anti-material rifles
Skorpion Submachine gun
PSL Semi-auto Sniper rifle
Knights Armament SR-25 Rifle
PSL Semi-auto rifle
PPSH-41 Submachine gun
SVT-40 Battle Rifle
M1 Garand Rifle
M1 Carbine Rifle
Striker 12 "Street Sweeper" Shotgun
Any machine gun with .50 BMG or higher round
Gun control advocates fail to understand that their very definition of an "assault weapon" can be easily changed. Minuscule changes can be made to an "assault weapon" to make it no longer fall into that category. A perfect example is California's latest changes to "assault weapons." Small changes, like what type of grip is on a rifle, can be the difference between whether or not the gun is outlawed. Does the grip change how the gun functions? No. All it does it change how it visibly looks.
Reduce gun violence in poor communities
In both the United States and globally, gun violence is strongly correlated with both poverty and inequality. A recent World Bank study found that inequality helped predict the difference in murder rates between states in the United States—as well as between countries. Suicides, which make up the majority of gun deaths in the country, skyrocket in times of economic distress.
The Great Recession alone was linked to more than 10,000 suicides, according to one study.
Congress but act to bring hope and funding into poor communities.
The most surprising thing about their list of demands: they admit that suicides are the largest majority of gun-related deaths in America, not mass shootings. Yet they're spending their time advocating for gun control to prevent said mass shootings.
See the irony here?
The group also established a GoFundMe account to raise $35,000 to get speakers to their event. So far, they have raised a measly $25.
In addition to the event in front of NRA headquarters in Virginia, the group is also coordinating events in Washington State, California, Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.