Thread by @shannonrwatts

From my speech today at #gsu2022: "Every year, I use this time to recap your amazing work and celebrate your successes. This year, however, it is simply not possible to highlight all of the accomplishments of the survivors and volunteers leading @MomsDemand and @studentdemand."

"We’ve always understood this work is a marathon and not a sprint, but the last few months have felt like running an ultra-marathon. You planned and hosted 3,000 events across the US in weeks. @StudentsDemand volunteers hosted 250 school walkouts in 36 states and Washington, DC."

"And you shut down the Senate switchboard, driving a record ONE MILLION calls and messages to lawmakers in less than a month. Why is that so significant?"

"Because a decade ago, when our fledgling organization was asking Senators to vote for the Manchin-Toomey bill, North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp said she voted against the bill because she’d heard 5 to 1 from constituents in opposition."

"Ten years later, we had become so strategic and so strong that Indiana Republican Senator Todd Young said he was willing to vote for federal gun safety legislation because the calls to his office were 10 to 1 in favor."

"You broke the logjam in Congress and helped pass federal gun safety legislation for the first time in a generation. This community you’ve created over the last decade – and the political power you’ve amassed – is how the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act became law."

"And just days after the President signed that legislation into law, the Senate confirmed an ATF Director for the first time in seven years, thanks to the 900,000 calls and messages you drove into Senators’ offices."

"And that was just months after you helped confirm a Supreme Court justice with gun sense and got the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act over the finish line."

"And if the work and wins I outlined were all you had accomplished in the last year, it would have been more than enough, but not only did you keep pressure on your federal lawmakers to deliver these historic victories, you never skipped a beat in your state and local advocacy."

"You worked with state lawmakers to help unlock a record breaking $860 million dollars for violence intervention programs on the frontline of the gun violence crisis. This funding will help them implement data-proven strategies, from street outreach to hospital intervention."

"These programs are critical to addressing the disproportionate impact of gun violence on Black and Brown communities. Which is why we’re giving $25 million dollars to support 100 community-based violence intervention programs in your communities over the next five years."

"In statehouses, you passed four dozen gun safety laws. In Rhode Island, you passed the first law to prohibit open carry of any long gun in public. In Delaware, you passed the first state assault weapons ban in the nation in a decade."

"In Maryland and Illinois, you helped pass laws that regulate ghost guns. In Colorado, you supported legislation to prohibit armed intimidation and open carry in sensitive places. In California, you passed an innovative package of laws that will hold the industry accountable."

"And in New York, you helped pass the largest gun safety package to date, including first-of-its-kind laws that require ammunition microstamping and crack down on gun trafficking."

"You’ve continued to stop the gun lobby in statehouses. For the 7th year in a row, you defeated 90% of the gun lobby’s priority bills. In Alaska, you defeated punitive preemption. In Idaho, you defeated shoot first, punitive preemption and a bill to legalize private militias."

"In Nebraska and Louisiana, you held off efforts to pass permitless carry. And in gun lobby strongholds like Missouri and Arizona, you had a clean sweep, without a single priority bill passing."

"And you innovated in city councils, county commissions and school boards. In Colorado, volunteers overturned the state’s preemption law last year and are now going city by city to pass gun safety ordinances. So far, seven municipalities have strengthened their policies."

"In Ohio, after a new law allowing teachers to be armed went into effect in June, our volunteers worked with school districts across the state, like in Cleveland and Cincinnati, to pass resolutions against arming teachers."

"In Oregon, where three former @MomsDemand volunteers are now state reps, our volunteers have taken advantage of a state law they passed last year allowing us to pass policies in nearly 30 school districts prohibiting guns at the public schools of more than 200,000 students."

"Thanks to your BeSMART work, 2.5M student families in America have received materials on how to securely store their firearms. California volunteers are working to pass a first-of-its-kind law requiring every student in the state to be sent home with secure storage information."

"The work I’ve highlighted honestly only scratches the surface of your selfless service and strategic savvy. But that doesn’t mean your work didn’t count or that we didn’t see it. So much of this work can feel painstaking, incremental, tedious, and intense."

"But we see you standing for hours on end in the bowels of statehouses. We hear you sharing your personal painful stories with perfect strangers to change hearts and minds. We see you being forced to breastfeed in bathrooms and closets."

"We see you making calls and registering voters between classes. We see your endless trips to the post office. We see you entering data into VAN late at night after your kids are in bed. We honor the unglamorous, heavy lifting of grassroots activism that you do every day."

"And it isn’t the photo op at the finish line in the Rose Garden that matters – it’s the movement you’ve built and sustained for a decade that matters. Beating back the dangerous agenda of gun makers matters. Saving the lives of countless strangers you’ll never meet matters."

"Our work continues. We need more than one vote majorities, from the Senate all the way down to school boards. The midterm elections are just 108 days away, and what happens in November will determine not just the future of our issue, but the future of democracy."

"This election cycle we must do everything in our power to convert swing voters into gun safety voters, and prove to lawmakers at all levels that gun safety isn’t just good policy, it’s good politics."

"And, in addition to our work to get out the vote for gun sense candidates, we’ll also work to elect the 120 survivors and volunteers, many of whom were trained through our Demand a Seat program, running for office in November."

"This year, you showed the world that when ordinary people unite, they can collectively do extraordinary things, even when facing down a powerful adversary."

"It may take generations to achieve all of the changes we want to see, but our feet are firmly planted on the right side of history and we will not be moved. Ultimately, it takes all of us to out organize, out work and out vote the gun lobby."

"I hope you build new connections this weekend and you're inspired to bring best practices back into your communities. I’m excited to tell you that after three years of virtual GSUs, we’ll finally be meeting again in person next year. Until then, keep going."