“Shannon Watts of Zionsville, Ind. [above] did not want her 12-year-old son to hear about the Sandy Hook massacre.” Bam! What else do you need to know about the founder of One Million Moms for Gun Control? Ms. Watts wants to shield her son from knowledge of evil in the world so she forms a lobby group to restrict (i.e. eliminate) Americans’ Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. I suppose the only other important facts about Ms. Watts are . . .
A) she’s from The Dark Side (PR) and B) the New York-based national media is eating out of her hand. CBS, USA Today, Forbes—they’re all over it. (Take that Gun Appreciation Day!)
The above lead comes courtesy of The New York Times, which pimps Watts’ product with all the subtlety of Huggy Bear, offering not one word of criticism.
“There was no focus group testing,” she said. “I came up with the name off the top of my head. I had a feeling that every other mom in America had a similar idea. I just happened to create the page that they found.”
Since then, she said, the group has applied to the Internal Revenue Service for nonprofit tax status and has set up more than 70 chapters. But she said she was determined to use social media to counter the influence of the National Rifle Association and its success in lobbying to loosen or eliminate gun regulations.
Seventy chapters? Really? Does the New York Times employ fact checkers? ‘Cause I’m thinking Ms. Watts makes chapters faster than McDonald’s make hamburgers (especially these days). You! You’re a chapter. You, over there! Yes you! You’re a chapter!
We shall see what percentage of one million moms supports Ms. Watts’ cause. silive.com reports that . . .
Ms. Watts has organized a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall at 9:35 a.m. to call on Congress to take New York’s lead and enact tough gun-control legislation . . .
[ED: pictures are now up on “1MM4GC’s” website, as above. I call it less than 40 participants, including kids]
Tony-nominated actress Montego Glover will sing “26 Names.” It’s written by Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown in tribute to the 20 Sandy Hook Elementary School first-graders and six school officials who died in the Newtwon shooting last month.
It would be easy to dismiss Ms. Watts’ cynical manipulation of women’s emotions for civilian disarmament. But the comely Hoosier gun grabber was made in a mainstream media test tube. Sadly, dangerously, her protest will get more coverage than larger pro-2A rallies. Her campaign will run and run.
Oh wait. Right. The Million Moms for Gun Control’s goals. Back to the Times . . .
The group issued a statement on Wednesday applauding President Obama’s proposals to ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and to widen background checks for gun buyers. The One Million Moms group also called for regulating and tracking ammunition and for limiting state concealed-weapons laws.
Ms. Watts, in a telephone interview, praised the gun control bill that the New York Legislature approved and that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law on Tuesday. The measure expanded the existing ban on assault weapons and limited magazine clips to 7 rounds of ammunition instead of 10.
She suggested that New York’s success in passing a gun-control bill should serve as an example for Congress. “The fact that Governor Cuomo was able to find common sense and common ground with a Republican-led State Senate shows it can be done,” she said.
The sooner someone starts One Million Moms for Armed Self-Defense the better. (Sorry; One Million Single Parents for Armed Self-Defense won’t cut it.)