Nonprofits Join Together to Call for Stronger Gun Control

In 2017, NPQ’s Steve Dubb asked, “Can Nonprofits Learn from the Vegas Massacre and Make a Difference?” He discussed several different areas in which nonprofits help their communities during and in the aftermath of a mass shooting. He also said something that is still unfortunately relevant now: “Today, the ability of such horrors to shock is much diminished, although the deaths and injuries that continue to accumulate are no less tragic for their familiarity.” Since the Las Vegas shooting, the United States has continued to mourn the loss of its citizens to gun violence. Gun Violence Archive keeps a running database for gun violence, and in 2019 alone, there have been 262 mass shootings—too many to list in one article. At the start of this month, Steve Dubb covered another shooting, this one at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. There, a nonprofit was, as Dubb noted, “literally on the front lines.” In the two years between the two, mass shootings have been on the rise. And only two weeks later, Dubb wrote about a community’s resilience following yet another mass shooting—one at a Walmart that targeted a Latinx community in El Paso. Guns Down America—itself formed in 2016 in response to a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, has, according to USA Today, called on Color of Change, MoveOn, Orange Ribbons for Gun Safety, and the American Federation of Teachers to join them in a weekend action to pressure Walmart to cease its gun sales and demand legislative action. (They want Walmart to publicly support gun buyback programs and a ban on military style weapons.) Walmart is standing behind its gun sales stance, but Guns Down America and its coalition hopes their campaign will go viral and they can use their #WalmartMustAct challenge to push the megacorporation to budge.