As the NRA goes on the offensive against state and local gun restrictions, gun control leaders are working to educate progressive allies about the coming fight

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The leader of America’s largest gun control group pledged to “spend what it takes” to defeat the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) push to weaken local gun control laws in states such as New York, New Jersey and California.

Donald Trump will take the stage at the NRA’s annual meeting on Friday, becoming the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan to address the gun rights group, which spent at least $30m to help elect him last year, more than any other outside group.

With their close friend in the White House, the NRA has moved from defeating new attempts at passing gun control laws to going “on offense” against existing state and local restrictions that govern who is allowed to carry guns in public.

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Gun control leaders say they are working hard to educate their progressive allies about this coming fight over local gun laws.

“We’re drawing a line on the sand on this one, and we’ll spend what it takes,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group backed by billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Everytown has already launched about six weekly meetings to strategize about different aspects of the fight against “concealed carry reciprocity”, spokeswoman Erika Soto Lamb said.

While a growing number of states allow citizens to carry concealed guns in public without any permit, other states and cities have permitting standards so rigorous that only citizens who can demonstrate a special need for protection are given permission to carry a gun.



The NRA wants Congress to address this issue by passing legislation that would make gun permits issued in one state valid in all 50 states – what they call “concealed carry reciprocity”.

Gun rights advocates complain that the current patchwork of state laws is confusing and unfair, and that it sometimes lands gun owners in jail unfairly when they carry a gun across state lines from a place where their permit is valid to one where it is not.

But gun control advocates argue that reciprocity is much more dangerous than it appears.

“Concealed carry reciprocity does nothing to create a national standard. What it does is make the weakest link the law of the land,” Feinblatt said.

Standards for what it takes to be able to legally carry a gun in public range from no requirements at all in states like Vermont and Arizona, to cities like Los Angeles and New York, where it is “exceptionally difficult” for anyone to get a permit, said Adam Winkler, a gun law expert at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law.

Some versions of the federal legislation mandating national reciprocity for gun permits would essentially overturn strict gun laws in states like California, Winkler said. He rejects the comparison between concealed carry licenses and driver’s licenses in different states.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators with the activist group CodePink, along with other gun control advocates, hold a protest outside the headquarters of the NRA. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

“There’s no state that has a driver’s licenses that would be completely reversed and undermined by allowing drivers licensed in other states to drive there, too,” Winkler said.

“Now that Trump’s in power, states’ rights – they’re for liberals, too,” he added.

One of the challenges in fighting against “concealed carry reciprocity” is making sure people understand the practical impact of what seems at first like a “pretty arcane and complicated” policy, said Peter Ambler the executive director of Americans for Responsible Solutions, a gun control group founded by Gabby Giffords, the Democratic congresswoman who survived being shot in the head during a mass shooting in 2011.



“We’ve got an education deficit both on the Hill and around town among members of Congress, senators, staff, members of the media,” Ambler said.

Everytown will borrow a tactic from the NRA and score members of Congress on their concealed carry reciprocity votes.

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The scores will be “a way of putting Washington DC on notice”, Feinblatt said. “It’s a way of making it absolutely clear to a senator or House member’s constituency how somebody stacks up when it comes to gun safety.”

Those scores will have consequences in the 2018 midterm elections, he said, pointing to last year’s New Hampshire Senate race, where gun control groups spent millions targeting Kelly Ayotte for her record on guns. Ayotte was narrowly defeated by her pro-gun control challenger, a loss gun control groups claimed as a victory.

Everytown, which was founded after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut which left 20 first-graders dead, now claims nearly 4 million supporters, he said. Members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group that is part of Everytown, have been showing up at congressional town halls and asking questions about the coming reciprocity bill, Feinblatt said.

“We’ve built a national network, particularly in key states where we think this is going to be a battleground, and we’re making our voices heard,” he said.

Winkler said that he expected the legislative battle over reciprocity to focus on the Senate, where Democrats might threaten to filibuster the measure.