Gun safety groups beat the NRA in Virginia. Next stop: Texas

GAINESVILLE, VA. — Mike and Tammie Howard can usually hear gunshots from the woods close to their home on the western fringe of Washington D.C.’s sprawling suburbs. Mike Howard may even hear them now and again at Kettle Run Excessive Faculty, the place he coaches volleyball.

So a political advert in Northern Virginia concerning the distance stray bullets journey earlier than you’ll be able to even hear the crack of the shot struck a chord with them. It’s the kind of advert voters in Texas ought to anticipate to see quickly as gun violence prevention teams gear as much as spend large within the state subsequent yr after successful main victories in Virginia on Tuesday.

“That hits dwelling,” mentioned Mike Howard, who used to teach groups in South Florida that performed towards Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty, the place 17 individuals had been killed in 2018, together with the athletics director who Howard knew personally.

The advert, stuffed with pictures of empty playgrounds and bullets on soccer fields, was for John Bell, a Democrat who vowed in it, “I’m not afraid of the NRA, particularly in the case of conserving our youngsters protected.”

Bell this week flipped a state Senate district just some miles from the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation’s nationwide headquarters by campaigning laborious on gun violence prevention.

His advert was one among a number of funded by gun security teams, who spent almost $three million taking over the NRA on its dwelling turf.

Texas Take: Get political headlines from throughout the state despatched on to your inbox

Weapons emerged as a high difficulty for voters in Virginia, a state nonetheless reeling from a mass taking pictures earlier this yr — particularly for voters within the suburbs like these round D.C. and Richmond, who helped Democrats declare management of the state legislature for the primary time in 26 years.

“We despatched a message to the NRA in their very own yard,” mentioned former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who launched a gun violence prevention group after she was shot at a rally in 2011. “We’re turning the web page on an period the place legislators cashed gun foyer checks whereas communities lived in concern of shootings.”

Subsequent on Giffords’ checklist is Texas, the place the group has had current success serving to Democrats. The group spent greater than $1 million on TV adverts in Houston in 2018, supporting U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat who unseated longtime Republican Congressman John Culberson. The adverts went after Culberson for taking cash from the NRA and voting for weaker gun legal guidelines.

Teams just like the Giffords Regulation Heart to Stop Gun Violence have “targets up and down the poll in Texas in 2020,” mentioned Peter Ambler, Giffords’ government director. They embody every little thing from the U.S. Senate race to congressional seats and state Home districts — particularly within the suburbs.

“Texas goes to be a giant precedence of ours,” Ambler mentioned.

Virginia is commonly seen as a bellwether in nationwide politics, however it has some key similarities to Texas. Each states have gun-friendly cultures challenged by quickly increasing suburbs, the place voters usually tend to assist gun management measures.

For subscribers: Beto O’Rourke uncovered a blue backbone throughout deep crimson Texas

Each states have additionally been racked by gun violence. A gunman killed 12 individuals at a Virginia Seaside municipal constructing in Might. Texas, in the meantime, continues to be reeling from mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa in August that left 29 individuals lifeless.

Polling additionally establishes that voters in each states are extra open to new gun legal guidelines than the Republicans working the state home. Weapons had been the highest difficulty for Virginians only a month forward of this week’s elections, with overwhelming majorities favoring increasing background checks and “crimson flag” legal guidelines permitting authorities to take weapons away from somebody deemed a hazard, in line with a Washington Put up-Schar Faculty ballot.

There’s some proof voters in Texas really feel the identical. A College of Texas/Texas Tribune ballot this month discovered the vast majority of Texas voters assist stricter gun legal guidelines, and the overwhelming majority — together with most Republicans — favor requiring background checks for all gun purchases. A Quinnipiac College ballot final month discovered 89 % of Texas voters assist background checks for all gun patrons.

“Advocates in Virginia have pushed this difficulty to the forefront,” mentioned Don Mark, a Democratic guide in Richmond. “It’s an enormous shift on this politics, and it’s actually pushed by suburban voters.”

Bell’s was one among two suburban districts Democrats picked up campaigning on gun security. The celebration picked up at the least 5 new state Home seats, as effectively, and now controls the complete state authorities for the primary time in a era.

Lots of the races had been closely funded by gun violence prevention teams. Giffords spent at the least $300,000 on digital adverts within the state. Everytown for Gun Security Motion Fund, a bunch funded by New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, spent $2.5 million within the state, together with funding Bell’s advert.

The NRA in an announcement mentioned the result’s that “Virginians are about to expertise life underneath a distant tycoon’s thumb.”

“Candidates who proudly accepted Bloomberg’s money — and each voter they misled — will quickly understand the price of being beholden to a Manhattan billionaire who despises Virginians’ proper to self-defense,” the group mentioned. “Happily, many NRA-backed candidates in Virginia, New Jersey, Kentucky and Mississippi prevailed over their Bloomberg-funded opponents. Because the battle continues, so does the NRA’s protection of the Second Modification rights of all People.”

‘If we are able to’t change the legal guidelines, we’re going to alter your seats’

The trouble by gun security advocates adopted a particular session Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, known as after the Virginia Seaside taking pictures. Republicans, who managed the legislature, adjourned after simply 90 minutes with out contemplating a single invoice.

“Individuals are drained and fed up that these in management — and at this time limit, Republicans — are doing nothing about this,” mentioned Lori Haas, the state director of Cease Gun Violence, who has lobbied the state legislature on the problem ever since her daughter was shot at Virginia Tech in 2007. “Virginia Tech occurred 12 years in the past and other people thought there could be one thing … After all the voters are fed up and demanding change. If we are able to’t change the legal guidelines, we’re going to alter your seats.”

Some Republicans within the state apparently heard that message. State Sen. Glen Sturtevant, who was unseated by Ghazala Hashmi in a suburb of Richmond, despatched out marketing campaign mailers within the weeks forward of the election claiming assist for “crimson flag” legal guidelines.

It’s a shift that has began to occur in Texas, as effectively. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick within the wake of the El Paso taking pictures began calling for increasing background checks — even going so far as to name out the NRA for opposing them. State Rep. Sarah Davis, a Houston Republican, has additionally voiced assist for background checks, as have the Republican mayors of Odessa, Midland, El Paso and Fort Price.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, in the meantime, is pushing federal laws that may crack down on individuals promoting weapons illegally and broaden psychological well being packages — however notably leaves out measures akin to crimson flag legal guidelines and tightening background checks for gun purchases.

Cornyn will seemingly be a high goal for gun violence prevention teams, who say his laws would do little to cease mass shootings. Cornyn’s opponents, in the meantime, have hit him for taking cash from the gun foyer, together with a $1,000 marketing campaign donation from the NRA’s political motion committee two weeks after a gunman killed 22 at an El Paso Walmart.

“Although you might have John Cornyn, who’s placing ahead a fig leaf piece of laws, he’s acknowledging by doing that, that he’s in bother, that he has to have a solution on weapons, that his decades-long embrace of the NRA has made him much less protected,” Ambler mentioned.

Cornyn has mentioned his proposal “would go a good distance towards ensuring the background examine requirement is extra complete” by going after individuals who go round current necessities. He has mentioned his is a proposal that may really make it by Congress and earn the president’s signature.

“For many who say we wish you to do extra — I’m comfortable to pay attention, however I’m additionally to understand how we are able to really obtain the target, as a result of individuals have give you plenty of good concepts, however should you can’t get the votes to cross it within the Home and Senate and get a presidential signature, they don’t depend for a lot,” he mentioned earlier this month.

Mothers Demand Motion, one other group advocating for stricter gun legal guidelines, has already vowed that its volunteers can be out in full drive in Texas subsequent yr supporting candidates — together with three former Mothers Demand Motion volunteers who’re working for seats within the state Home: Becca De Felice in San Antonio and Jennifer Skidonenko and Paige Dixon in North Texas.

Giffords says its success serving to Fletcher flip her Houston seat is proof of what the group can do outdoors of Virginia.

“Even that was an indication of the instances,” Ambler mentioned. “The concept that a gun security group would, within the state of Texas, be capable to go into the Houston media market and run adverse adverts towards a Republican incumbent based mostly on his connections to the NRA would have been thought unattainable just some years in the past. The altering nature of Texas’ large, large suburbs and cities is basically driving these shifts.”

ben.wermund@chron.com