What Gun Control Advocates Are Learning From The Marriage Equality Movement
Now that the fight for marriage equality is over in the U.S., progressives are looking for the next big issue. For many, the answer is gun control. Now it seems gun control advocates are taking a page from the marriage equality playbook.
In an article in New York, writer Lisa Miller pinpoints some of the shifts marriage equality activists made—changes other movements could take to heart.
First, they began to answer the concerns of real Americans who were on the fence—taking the time to actually consider their audience. Second, they took the fight from the federal level to the state and local level. And third, whenever possible, they tried to be consistent in messaging.
Gun control advocates are trying similar tactics: For example, instead of fighting the NRA on a national level, they are taking their case to individual states—with ballot initiatives on issues like background checks.
Miller delineates the major comparison between the two struggles:
"...The most dramatic shift in the gun movement has — as in the marriage movement — one of messaging.
Instead of following every mass shooting with anguished cries of outrage, and barrages of data on deaths, rounds of ammo, and millions of guns sold — together with an implicit disregard of and condescension toward the firmly held allegiances of gun owners (how could they?) — gun activists are taking a much more incremental, practical approach with a message that goes to the heart, not the head.
The U.S. has the highest rate of gun-related deaths of any country in the developed world. Almost everyone knows someone who has been a victim of guns — not shot and killed, necessarily, but threatened or frightened or witness to an accident. The new idea is to enlist Americans’ help — all Americans, including those who own guns — in reducing that number.
Like 'love and commitment,' it’s hard to argue with no matter what side you’re on."
Sounds like a smart plan.
h/t: New York
