Gun Control Groups Using School Boards To Push Agenda
AP Photo/Steve Helber

While gun owners have been using the power of their local and county governments to push Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions across the country, gun control advocates aren’t ignoring the power that can be found in local governments, though they’re adopting a slightly different strategy than Second Amendment supporters. NBC News recently reported on the gun control movement’s use of local school boards to advance their anti-gun agenda, and it’s something every gun owner should be paying attention to.

NBC’s story focuses on the efforts of a Californian named Donna Finkelstein, who founded the Los Angeles chapter of the Brady Campaign after her daughter was wounded in a shooting at a Jewish community center in 1999. She began working on using local schools to push a gun storage message, which eventually led to the Los Angeles school board putting in place a measure that asks parents to attest that their firearms are stored in compliance with California law. Since then, the movement has taken off nationally.

“I think as the gun safety movement has matured we’ve started to see the power in working a little more locally,” said Abbey Winter, a Moms Demand Action chapter leader in Denver.

Winter, the mother of a preschooler, pitched a resolution similar to the Los Angeles policy to Tay Anderson, a 21-year-old who was elected last year to the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. Anderson then co-hosted a gun violence prevention town hall in January and proposed a resolution to require the district send information to all parents about secure storage of guns — although without asking parents to sign it. The resolution passed unanimously.

“We’re not here to push a partisan agenda or to say we must take your guns away,” Anderson said. “All we’re saying is we want to keep our kids safe.”