Brady VP of Policy Christian Heyne: “For far too long, our federal government has failed to pass meaningful gun reforms, and one of the main causes for that is the filibuster.”
The report was officially released on Fix Our Senate’s partner briefing call with leaders from Brady, Guns Down America, March For Our Lives, Newtown Action Alliance, States United to Prevent Gun Violence, and Team ENOUGH.
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Fix Our Senate released a comprehensive report, “A Lethal Weapon: The Filibuster as an Obstacle to Gun Violence Prevention,” which exclusively ran in The Trace’s Daily Bulletin this morning. The report details how the filibuster has been used to block gun reform measures for decades, and why Senate Democrats must eliminate the filibuster in order to pass meaningful gun violence prevention legislation.
With recent stalled attempts to find bipartisan solutions to passing a background check bill in the Senate, along with the first two successful filibusters of this legislative session happening in the past month, the need to bypass the filibuster in order to pass meaningful, common sense gun reforms is more clear than ever. The report was created in partnership with Guns Down America, Brady, Newtown Action Alliance, and States United to Prevent Gun Violence.
"Every passing day that the Senate does not pass meaningful gun violence prevention legislation, 100 people lose their lives,” said Jennifer Mandelblatt, Coalition Manager of Fix Our Senate. “Our coalition of nearly 80 organizations came together because the millions of Americans they serve deserve action on life-changing and life-saving legislation, including gun violence prevention measures, and they need it now. Senate Democrats need to get their act together and eliminate the filibuster to pass comprehensive background checks, close loopholes, and put an end to the gun violence epidemic once and for all.”
You can watch the recording of the briefing here. Key quotes from the call include:
"For far too long, our federal government has failed to pass meaningful gun reforms, and one of the main causes for that is the filibuster.” said Christian Heyne, Vice President of Policy at Brady. “I can tell you directly as a survivor of gun violence who is joined by incredible advocates and survivors on this very panel today—we are all here to say that we simply can’t wait anymore.”
"When it comes to the issue of gun reform, an issue that an overwhelming majority of Americans support, including Republican voters, including gun owners themselves, we’ve been, as you point out, in a real standstill,” said Igor Volsky, Executive Director of Guns Down America. “The reason for that standstill is the filibuster, is the fact that a small minority of senators can stop progress on an issue that an overwhelming majority of Americans support. And we’re in a place now where perhaps there’s a road forward for changing that reality, for changing the rules of the Senate.”
"After my neighbor killed 20 first graders and six educators here in Sandy Hook, Connecticut passed the second strongest set of gun laws in the nation, and we expected Congress to do the same,” said Po Murray, Chair of Newtown Action Alliance. “Congressional inaction on gun violence during the last three decades will definitely go down in history as a lesson of failed governance. The federal government’s number one job is to protect all of us from harm and injury, and they’ve failed.”
"Honestly, our government is failing young people,” said Zeenat Yahya, Deputy Policy Director of March For Our Lives. “Youth are some of the most politically engaged folks. We were super critical in the 2020 election, to elect Biden and Harris into the White House, and we’re inheriting a system that is broken, and we’re gonna have to be the ones to live with it the longest. Politicians have been using voters, including us, to gain power for themselves, but voters get little in return.”
"The filibuster is standing in the way of the will of the young people, and it just really needs to go,” Yahya continued.
"It’s really just baffling to me that we’re in 2021 and there is no federal bill that treats lynching as a crime, and that just honestly, as a Black woman in this country, it really hurts just to understand the history of that and the fact that we have the filibuster in place that is still blocking it,” said Aalayah Eastmond, Executive Council Member of Team Enough. “We know that gun violence disproportionately impacts Black and Brown communities. We know that gun violence is the leading cause of death for Black youth. And we are seeing problems in regards to resources to these communities. And in order to get resources to these communities, we need to remove the filibuster.”
"We need the loopholes closed in every state. But even the most common sense bipartisan laws are stalled in the Senate by a handful of Republican Senators who are ignoring the wishes of their constituents, the people that vote them in,” said Clai Lasher-Sommers, Executive Director of States United to Prevent Gun Violence. “Eliminating the filibuster would allow for common sense, life-saving laws to advance in the Senate.”
Key excerpts from the report include:
Approximately 3 million children are exposed to gun violence every year, and guns are now the second highest cause of death for children under 18.
Across the United States, Black Americans die from gun violence at twice the rate of white Americans, and are wounded by a gun at 14 times the rate of white Americans.
In 2020, the United States experienced over 600 mass shootings, an increase of almost 50 percent since 2019. Since 2014, over 3,000 people have been killed in mass shootings.
Our country’s epidemic of gun violence requires our lawmakers to take swift, bold action; instead, McConnell has continued to let bills and proposals pile up, wielding the filibuster as a tool of obstruction, while the rest of us pay the price with our lives.
Although support has fluctuated over the years, a 2018 Gallup survey found that support for stricter gun laws was the highest it had been since 1993 – the year the Brady Bill passed. In 2018, 67 percent of Americans said that they believed the laws covering firearm sales should be stricter, as opposed to just 4 percent who said they should be less strict.
As of April 2021, 20 states and the District of Columbia had enacted legislation to address the Charleston Loophole. The House passed legislation to address this loophole in March 2021, but the filibuster likely makes passage in the Senate impossible.
Eliminating the filibuster is not an escalation of partisan tactics. It is not a short-sighted move that begs political retribution the next time Democrats are in the minority. It is a recognition from those most involved in the fight for progress, past and present, that the filibuster is a bulwark against liberty.