Everytown for Gun Safety is an American non-profit organization which advocates for gun control and against gun violence. Everytown was formed in 2013 due to a merger between Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.Everytown For Gun Safety: Who We Are
The organization works to "support efforts to educate policy makers, as well the press and the public, about the consequences of gun violence, and promote efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals". The group has focused on efforts to require universal background checks on firearms purchases. The organization also produces research and studies on gun violence. Everytown for Gun Safety is largely financed by Michael Bloomberg.
The group has drawn criticism, in 2009, for example, several mayors stated that they discovered they had been listed as supporters of the organization without their knowledge or consent.
History
Origin
Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) was formed in April 2006 during a summit co-hosted by mayors Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Thomas Menino of Boston at New York's mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion. Bloomberg and Menino co-chaired the coalition. The initial group consisted of 15 mayors who signed a statement of principles. By the end of 2014, there were 855 mayors in the coalition.
In April 2014, MAIG merged with Moms Demand Action to form Everytown for Gun Safety. The launch of Everytown occurred nearly one year after the U.S. Senate debated a series of changes to federal gun laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, including a failed amendment, sponsored by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D) and Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey (R), that would have required background checks for all gun sales taking place at gun shows or over the internet. According to Bloomberg, Everytown was founded to match the National Rifle Association of America in political influence.
Issues Background checks The organization advocates for expanding the background check system for gun buyers through changes in state and federal laws, and supports legislation that would require background checks for all gun sales. The organization also supports state laws requiring the reporting of mental health records to the national background check system.
Assault weapons Everytown supports banning assault weapons.
Domestic violence Everytown has supported laws that prohibit domestic abusers from obtaining firearms. Internal research produced by Everytown concludes that states that require background checks for private handgun sales have lower rates of intimate partner gun violence than states that do not require background checks. According to the group, Everytown supported the passage of laws intended to block convicted domestic abusers and people subject to domestic violence restraining orders in six states in 2014: Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Preventable injuries The organization supports gun safety technology and laws requiring safe storage of firearms to prevent accidental child gun deaths, citing the high rate of firearm injuries among American children compared to other countries.
Gun trafficking The organization also favors strengthening penalties for gun trafficking through the creation of a federal gun trafficking statute.
Tiahrt Amendment Prior to the inception of Everytown, a priority goal of Mayors Against Illegal Guns was to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, named after its sponsor, former Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS). Since its passage in 2003 as an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, the Tiahrt Amendment has forbidden the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing information from its firearm trace database to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a specific criminal investigation, and any data so released is deemed inadmissible in a civil lawsuit. Representative Tiahrt stated that his amendment intended to protect the privacy of gun owners and to prevent abuse of the data by anyone outside of law enforcement agencies.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns sought the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment for these reasons:
The Tiahrt Amendment restricts access of state and local law enforcement authority to gun trace data, hindering municipal police departments' ability to track down sellers of illegal guns, to investigate gun trafficking patterns, and to make connections between individual gun-related crimes. Mayor Bloomberg has called the Amendment "an insult to the thousands of police officers that face the threat of illegal guns." The Tiahrt Amendment requires that NICS background check records be destroyed within 24 hours. According to MAIG, this makes it harder for law enforcement authorities to catch law-breaking gun dealers who falsify their records and makes it more difficult to identify and track down straw purchasers who buy guns on behalf of criminals who wouldn't be able to pass a background check or prohibited purchasers who buy firearms themselves due to errors in the background check process. The Tiahrt Amendment denies the ATF the authority to require dealer inventory checks to detect lost and stolen guns. Under current rules, the ATF can conduct a warrantless search of any licensed gun dealer once per year.
Joining Mayors Against Illegal Guns in supporting the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment were 10 national law enforcement organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Police Executive Research Forum; state law enforcement associations representing 22 states; and individual police chiefs representing 39 states. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has pointed out that the ATF under the Bush administration (2001–2008) was unable to produce any evidence that law enforcement officers were harmed by the agency's release of crime gun trace data prior to 2003.
In July 2007, after the House Appropriations Committee rebuffed attempts to repeal the amendment, the Senate Appropriations Committee went further, approving a bill that, according to The New York Times, "threaten[ed] law enforcement officials with prison time for using gun tracing data beyond a specific investigation, say, for identifying and targeting trafficking patterns."
Congressman Tiahrt responded to MAIG's position on his amendment in a congressional statement in 2007:
Kelly, however, has participated in events calling for the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment. The ATF under the Obama administration has issued no formal position on the amendment. While a Senator, President Barack Obama stated:
At a time when bloodshed on our streets is on the rise, making sure that our law enforcement officers have all the tools they need to fight crime should be our top priority. But instead of providing those tools, the Tiahrt Amendment ties the hands of police in their effort to halt illegal gun trafficking and sales. I am proud to join the Mayors Against Illegal Guns in their fight against this dangerous legislation. Our communities and the brave men and women who risk their lives everyday to protect us deserve more from Congress.
His administration, however, sought only minor modifications to the amendment during the most recent appropriations cycle.
Constitutional carry Moms Demand Action has also advocated against constitutional carry, also known as permitless carry, unrestricted carry, or Vermont carry, which refers to legislation that legalizes the public concealed or open carry of firearms without a license or permit. On March 21, 2022, Indiana became the 24th state to legalize constitutional carry; Moms Demand Action was initially founded in Indianapolis, Indiana and, even so, the bill was able to pass despite staunch opposition by the organization.
Other issues
Everytown has filed amicus curiae briefs in support of New Jersey's high-capacity magazine ban, California's may-issue permitting law, and New York's may-issue permitting law. May-issue permitting was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2022, NYSRPA v. Bruen.
A brief was filed challenging Florida's state preemption law against local firearm ordinances.
In July 2018, the organization sought an injunction to block the distribution of blueprints for 3D printed firearms by Defense Distributed.
The group also advocated for the prohibition of bump stocks following the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting.
Programs and political activities In April 2008, Walmart — the largest retailer of firearms in the U.S. — voluntarily adopted a number of new sales practices at the behest of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, to "help ensure that guns do not fall into the wrong hands". Senior Vice President J. P. Suarez stated that Walmart signed the 10-point code of the "Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership" to help the corporation "fine tune the things we're already doing, and further strengthen our standards". He added, "We hope other retailers will join us in adopting the code."
In 2009, Mayors Against Illegal Guns lobbied against the Thune Amendment on concealed firearms, taking out full paper ads in hundreds of newspapers and directly lobbying then Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. The Thune Amendment, often referred to as "Concealed Carry Reciprocity", would have changed federal law to require each U.S. state to recognize permits from all other states. Currently, each state decides which other states' permits they will recognize. The NRA, which supported the amendment, vowed to "score" the vote of legislators. The amendment was defeated 58 to 39, the first time the NRA had lost a vote on the Senate floor in a decade.
After the 2011 Tucson shooting in which Representative Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) was injured, the organization started a petition called "Fix Gun Checks" to require background checks for all gun purchasers, which received 250,000 signatures. The group also released research demonstrating that 18 states had submitted fewer than 100 mental health records to the background check system, and lent its support for the Fix Gun Checks Act, introduced by New York Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Carolyn McCarthy. The group drove a truck on a two-month tour of the country with planned stops in several states to raise awareness about gun violence.
In 2012, the organization worked with retired military leaders to successfully overturn a Congressional amendment prohibiting military commanders and mental health professionals from inquiring about or keeping records of firearms and ammunition in service members' private possession. In April 2013, the organization led efforts to pass legislation in the U.S. Senate to require a background check for all gun sales in commercial settings. Known as the Manchin-Toomey Amendment (Amendment 715 of the 113th Congress), the legislation would have expanded the requirements for conducting background checks to cover all gun sales made over the internet and at gun shows. The amendment ultimately failed to win the 60 votes necessary for passage in the Senate.