Want Gun Reform? Get Indivisible

I’m a NRA member, and I vote   NRA bumper sticker

Big fucking deal. I’m an Irish Catholic American, and I vote too. As long as you’re registered, it’s easy! And fortunately, you don’t even have to pass an IQ test to get a ballot. But for more than a generation, that stupid bumper sticker has been enough to scare politicians of all stripes shitless.

It’s actually a simple matter of basic math. The NRA likes to brag that it has more than 7 million members. There are 435 congressional districts in the United States. taken purely on average, that means approximately 16,091 votes per district, plenty to affect a district race where the final outcome is often determined by less than 15,000 votes. And in a state race for the US Senate, that’s a healthy 140,000 per state, again easily enough to tip a result.

For more than a generation, the NRA has thrived on two things, voting clout, and campaign lobbying cash. But the funski has been shut off for the NRA. Years of rampant fiscal abuse, some of it quite possibly illegal, has the NRA in bankruptcy court, as well as being torn apart by a messy internal court fight. And the major source of NRA lobbying kaboodle has always been corporate sponsorships. Millions of dollars paid annually by US armament manufacturers for the NRA to protect them and their sales. But now, many of them are also in chapter 11 bankruptcy themselves, or unwilling to continue to funnel millions of dollars into a corporate power structure that is bleeding the place dry. So their only leverage is their voting members.

And that shouldn’t be all that daunting of a problem, properly managed. In the age of mass shootings, there have been literally hundreds of gun control advocacy groups that have spring up all over the country. Sandy Hook Promise, Moms Against Gun Violence, the list is endless. But the simple fact is that they are fractured and alone, and none of them are able to present the kind of mass numbers needed to move political thought.

That’s where Indivisible, or a tailored hybrid of it, is needed right now. Indivisible flipped the House in 2018. It (they) helped Biden win the White House in 2020, not by uniting all of the disparate Indivisible groups under one banner, but instead by showing them how to coordinate to maximize their strength! Indivisible let each separate group do their own thing, but it allowed them to coordinate to maximize the effect of their own thing. And that’s exactly what the gun reform movement needs right now.

Somewhere, somehow, somebody a whole helluva lot smarter than me has to be able to find a simple way to create a database that can connect all of these groups, especially different groups in the same state, to allow them to maximize their voting power. Other than penny slots, I’m not a gambling man, but I’d bet a lunch that if you totaled them all up, there are more passionate, concerned, gun control advocates out there than there are NRA members. And shit, the vast majority of gun owners support what these people are asking for!

This is the only way to make politicians of both parties to sit up and take notice. Who cares if you get a bunch of phone calls, e-mails, and district office visits from a group that has 30 members. But if you start getting those calls, e-mails, texts, and district visits from groups that, under an umbrella, account for 15,000 people, that is going to get your attention. Especially if they’re sincere, committed, and ready to rumble.

This. Would. Work. Especially at a time when the NRA is fractured, distracted, and on the ropes. Indivisible made it possible for dozens of separate organizations in each state to come together, and flex their collective muscles in a way that politicians couldn’t ignore. And it can work this time as well. God knows nothing else has.

Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35