Taking Aim at Gun Violence

Support is growing for charities that seek stricter policies

Daniel Gross could easily raise money and attention for his charity, a gun-safety group,

by talking publicly about the pain he and his family suffered when his younger brother was permanently maimed by a sniper’s bullet at age 27.

But Mr. Gross, 33, doesn’t believe that pulling at heartstrings, either by sharing his family’s horror or by reminding people of other tragedies, like the killings at Columbine High School, in Colorado, will do much good.

“I can bring people to tears talking about my brother,” he says. “But in the end this issue can’t just be defined by the victims.”

He adds, “We all have to realize how this has the potential to affect us all, and we all have the opportunity to help solve it.”

Mr. Gross says that before he founded Pax, a charity that is trying to mobilize youths, parents, gun owners, and others to prevent gun violence, he carefully studied groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and AIDS organizations to figure out how best to galvanize public support for a cause that attracts emotional opposition.

“When AIDS was an issue defined by perceived extremists,” he says, “marketers and advertisers had a tough time getting behind it. When it became a cultural issue to everyone, when entertainers and the media got involved, all of a sudden companies, foundations, everyone started jumping on the bandwagon to support AIDS-related charities.”

Mr. Gross and other gun-control advocates see signs that they are succeeding in making more Americans aware of what they can do to prevent shootings. Last spring’s Million Mom March to protest gun violence, which drew 700,000 participants to the nation’s capital, was perhaps the most ambitious effort to transform gun control into a cause that a range of people are willing to rally behind.

Since the march, more than 230 chapters in 44 states have joined the Million Mom March Foundation, which is working to reduce gun violence in cities and towns.

“The old debate is that this was a trench war between the National Rifle Association and gun-control advocates,” says Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit organization in Washington that conducts research on gun-related violence. Today, he says, there is “a growing coalition of the public, women’s organizations, youth organizations, the foundation community, and others bringing a new voice to the debate.”

Donations Soaring

Gun-control groups not only are attracting new members, but they also are attracting more money.

The Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence, in Washington, a coalition of nonprofit groups and individuals that support gun-control measures, has seen its budget soar from less than $100,000 nearly a decade ago to $1.3-million this year.

The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, also in Washington, has raised more than $5-million this year, more than half of that from individuals. That figure is up from $2.2-million eight years ago.

And Handgun Control, the political arm of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, has raised $8-million this year, including $4-million to spend on advertising during this presidential campaign, up from just $350,000 four years ago.

The aim of the ads is to get voters — particularly women — to think about the issue when they go to the polls next month, says David Bernstein, a spokesman for Handgun Control, particularly since the two major presidential candidates, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, are focusing on other issues, such as health care and education.

“It’s the women voters that are key in this election and on this issue,” says Mr. Bernstein. “And that’s who we are targeting.”

Groups that oppose new gun-control measures are also seeing rising interest from new members, especially women. The Million Mom March prompted the creation of an opposing charity, the Second Amendment Sisters, that is enlisting women to support the right to carry guns for personal protection.

Growing calls for new gun-control laws have also mobilized support for the National Rifle Association. Its membership stands at an all-time high of 4 million, says Patricia Gregory, a spokeswoman for the organization, and it has a budget of $168-million.

“A lot of Americans feel as if their rights have never been more threatened,” Ms. Gregory says. “Our members take it personally, whether it’s the media or political pundits or gun-control groups who make the NRA feel like it’s their fault whenever there’s a crime committed with a gun.”

Many Hurdles

Even with the momentum from the Million Mom March, gun-control advocates still face many hurdles — especially in getting support in legislatures and on Capitol Hill.

One problem is that leaders of gun-control charities disagree over which goals should command top priority. Most groups, for example, believe that pushing for mandatory licensing and registration of handguns would do the most to help reduce deaths and injuries from firearms.

But others say the most effective way to fight violence is to sue gun manufacturers and press for new restrictions on their activities.

Nevertheless, there is growing consensus that small, incremental changes, such as forcing manufacturers to put safety locks on all gun triggers, won’t be enough to solve the problem, and that the focus has to be on changing policies to reduce access to handguns.

“There really is no serious gun policy in this country,” says Donna Dees-Thomases, a New Jersey mother who began organizing the march after seeing television reports of a shooting at a day-care center in California.

Then, there are the organizational changes involved in any movement: how best to transform public enthusiasm for a cause into action.

“The greatest need in the gun-control movement is that we lack an effective grassroots organizational force to match the N.R.A.,” says Mr. Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center. “Will events like the Million Mom March translate into lasting grassroots support? That’s the question.”

Joining Forces

Many gun-control advocates believe it will. They consider the Million Mom March a turning point, not only because it was by far the largest rally ever against gun violence, but also because it marked the first large-scale cooperation among anti-gun violence groups.

“The march was a project between all of them and that really contributed to its strength,” says Rebecca Peters, executive director of the Funders’ Collaborative for Gun Violence Prevention, which represents grant makers who support gun-control groups.

Andrew McGuire, executive director of the Million Mom March Foundation and its political arm, the Million Mom March, says the Washington event succeeded in rounding up the grassroots element that had been missing from previous campaigns.

Just a year ago, he was overseeing a new charity called the Bell Campaign to Prevent Gun Trauma, in San Francisco, so named because the group planned to ring a bell each time it scored a legislative victory, and also to commemorate victims of gunfire.

With a three-year, $4.5-million grant from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund, in San Francisco, Mr. McGuire says, he was seeking to build a “Mothers Against Drunk Driving for gun control.”

Then he got a call from Ms. Dees-Thomases, who wondered if the Bell Campaign was interested in participating in the Million Mom March.

When the rally was successful beyond all expectation, the Bell Campaign decided that the best way to handle the overwhelming interest was to join forces with the Million Mom March. It elected Ms. Dees-Thomases to its Board of Directors and changed its name to the Million Mom March Foundation.

“For the first week after the march, we were getting 8,000 to 9,000 phone calls a day,” says Mr. McGuire. “It was like a tsunami, and we were under 50 feet of seawater.”

In the months since the march, the group has worked hard to ride the wave rather than be swept away by it.

It has had to process more than $500,000 in donations from individuals, while at the same time recruit leaders to organize chapters across the country.

In June, the group held five regional training sessions to instruct new chapter leaders and members. Mr. McGuire, a former board member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, persuaded MADD to share its materials on organizing chapters. And last month, his group held its first annual conference, which also focused on training new leaders.

One of them is Tierney O’Neil, who has two daughters and is the head of the Montgomery County, Md., chapter.

“This is completely my life now,” says Ms. O’Neil, who became involved after her synagogue asked her to arrange for a busload of congregation members to attend the march.

“As I have become more and more involved in the issue, the intensity and the reality of it has become so clear to me that I can’t back down.”

The Million Mom March and the Million Mom March Foundation have also been successful at attracting several large gifts and grants.

The group raised $1.7-million to put on the march, including a number of large gifts from individuals and foundations. It has also received a $1-million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for efforts to get young people involved in the California chapters. The political arm, meanwhile, received a $1-million donation from a person who asked to remain anonymous. The money is being used to inform voters in seven Congressional districts about candidates’ positions and voting records on gun control.

However, the charity is not faring as well in its quest for corporate dollars, says Lori Richardson, director of development.

So far, Dannon Yogurt, which sponsored the march with a $150,000 donation, has been the biggest corporate supporter, a role that has made it the target of e-mail, phone, and written letter complaints by pro-gun groups, Ms. Richardson says. The Million Mom March Foundation has countered by encouraging members to buy Dannon products.

The charity also received $25,000 from CIBC Worldwide Markets, a brokerage company. And, it nearly received a $250,000 sponsorship from a large Midwestern company, Ms. Richardson says, but in the end, fearing a backlash from gun enthusiasts, company officials chose not to proceed. Ms. Richardson declined to name the company.

“I hope we can bring this issue along so that in the next few years it won’t be as risky for corporations to come out and support gun control,” she says. “After all, what we support is what polls show the majority of Americans support.” She adds, “Our policy goals are middle-of-the-road, not radical.”

The Power of Advertising

Mr. Gross of Pax shares Ms. Richardson’s hope, and says his group’s efforts to appeal to a diverse constituency have helped it raise $2-million in cash in the past two years.

He also credits his advertising contacts, which he established as the youngest partner in the history of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.

Mr. Gross’s life was transformed one February day in 1997 when a sniper with a semiautomatic handgun sprayed the observation deck of the Empire State Building, severely wounding his brother, Matthew, and killing a friend. Daniel Gross decided to quit his job and start Pax, determined to work toward ending gun violence by using his talent for creating appealing advertising campaigns.

The charity recently unveiled one of those campaigns — ASK (Asking Saves Kids) — which encourages parents to ask neighbors or friends whether they have a gun in their home, and if so, whether it is stored properly, before sending their children over to play.

It is also using a $250,000 grant from the Levi Strauss Foundation to encourage kids to start Pax chapters in their schools.

“We’ve been on tour with rock bands,” Mr. Gross says. “We’ve had a partnership with MTV. We’re changing this into a hip issue to be associated with.”

Mr. Gross has been particularly successful in getting free advertising space. In addition to the $2-million in cash he has raised, he estimates that his group has received an additional $4-million from cable television networks and magazines that have donated airtime and print space for his public service ads.

Mr. Gross speculates that his group’s success in getting support from corporate donors is due in part to his efforts to appeal to gun-control advocates and gun owners alike.

“We are not here to create an opposing force to the NRA, necessarily, but to create an even more powerful force that unites non-gun owners and gun owners together around safety.”

Mr. Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center is not so optimistic.

“The pro-gun side and the gun-control side don’t have the same agenda,” he says. “Anything we could agree to would affect a very small portion of gun death and injury. Effective solutions mean that the gun industry will be selling fewer guns, and for them, that’s not on the table.”

Indeed, it remains to be seen how the efforts of anti-gun violence charities will translate into policy changes. Even though the Democratic Party platform supports various gun-control measures, Vice President Al Gore has spoken little about the issue since mentioning it in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in August.

At the same time, the NRA withheld an endorsement of Mr. Bush, who opposes many of the same gun-control measures the association dislikes, out of concern the endorsement could cost him votes.

Gun-control advocates see that move as a sign of their growing political clout. “It’s a tough battle,” says Mr. Sugarmann. “It’s not for the faint-hearted, and it’s not going to be won in a year.”

But, he adds, “Time is on our side. Eventually we will win.”